The Games We Play
by SGCbearcub
Summary: REPOST - Mulder and Scully participate in an FBI wargame that raises interesting questions about what game is being played...and the identities of the players.


I based this story (loosely) on an original movie script I planned to write called The Maze. It was psychological adventure drama where a bunch of people were run through a maze filled with tests set up by a visionary serial killer who was streaming the footage on the internet for money. I never did write it, but I borrowed some of the ideas for the story.

Title - "The Games We Play"  
Author - Wintersong  
E-Mail address - xf_wintersong  
Rating - R  
Category - SA  
Spoilers - First Person Shooter  
Keywords - none

PURity Category: Minor Characters

Summary - Mulder and Scully participate in an FBI  
wargame that raises interesting questions about  
what game is being played...and the identities  
of the players.

Disclaimer: They belong to CC and 1013.

Note: This story was written for the PURity  
Summer Season Challenge. It takes place after  
First Person Shooter but before Requiem.

*************************************

It was the FBI's newest toy...and everybody  
wanted to play.

It started out as the bastard stepchild of an HRT  
desire for their own Hogan's Alley training  
facility. Appropriations took one look at the  
projected budget and rightly choked. There was  
absolutely no way, they said, that that much  
money would be spent on a unit that had a bare  
100 agents, no matter how specialized. Grumbling  
at the prospect of sharing their playground, HRT  
nevertheless went back to the drawing board and  
redrew the plans, this time including facilities  
for SWAT and other fast -response training. The  
FBI National Academy program was proving to be  
such a success that the HRT designers decided  
that the same philosophy could be re-utilized.  
Quantico would provide the training facilities,  
the FBI would get a chance to get local law  
enforcement used to dealing with the new and  
improved federal response teams (the mandate of  
those teams being ever expanded to the  
jurisdiction and ego-pinching dismay of city and  
state police departments everywhere) and HRT  
would get it's multi-million dollar swingset.

It almost worked.

About the same time HRT was gleefully designing  
multi-leveled warehouses, hidden bunkers and  
underground tunnels, Quantico was getting serious  
requests for expanded seats in their National  
Academy program. Additional classes meant a need  
for additional accommodations and cafeteria  
allocations and the accountants were still  
reluctant to authorize the construction of  
facilities that needed to be built to full-time  
standards, but would likely only be filled to  
half capacity for the first few years. The  
possible expansion of available training programs  
\- training programs that the FBI might actually  
be able to charge for, made every cost recovery  
instinct sit up and sing. Even better, no one had  
any doubts that the federal government was going  
to be getting more involved with SWAT-like  
activities through CIRG and the FBI's expanding  
international mandate against terrorism, drugs  
and hostage negotiation.

Then someone read the HRT proposal.

And had an idea.

A wonderfully, horrible, awful idea. What if -  
they said- in grim awful, tones, we advertise?  
We build something so big, so unique, that no one  
except the federal government could afford to  
build it. HRT is the best? Then let's prove it.  
Let's build a training facility designed not just  
to train better soldiers, let's show the locals  
just how good our agents are. Let there be  
absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind, that when  
HRT takes over jurisdiction, that they deserve to  
be there. And how better to do that, then set the  
locals against the feds? And make them lose.

Of course, that was not exactly how they put it  
on paper..

Officially, local law enforcement would be run  
through the program to show them just how  
difficult it was, just how good HRT agents really  
were and then, after the hormone buzz wore off,  
they'd be given classroom training in how best to  
coordinate local and federal resources in an  
emergency situation. Ultimately, it was proposed,  
HRT would become the universal fast response  
standard.

It was a recruiter's wet dream.

So what about the money? It was going to cost  
big. Really big. And budgets were being reduced  
left, right and center. How were they going to  
justify something the size of a small theme park?

Somebody called the CIA and asked one simple  
question.

How would you like free rein to mind-fuck the  
FBI?

They crossed the water before breakfast.

Before anyone could sign on the dotted line, the  
NSA landed three helicopters and one pissed off  
director who demanded to know why he was being  
cut out of the fun. NCIS wanted any information  
that might come out regarding psychological  
stress testing of agents in the field while the  
CO for the Navy CRT at Catalano just wanted to  
know if he could help. Within four hours, the  
DEA, ATF, DOT and LAPD had all called wanting to  
reserve space in the program. The USMS reserved  
judgement.

Needless to say, HRT was more than a little put  
out with all the fingers being dipped into the  
pie...but they got their money.

Three years later the facility finally opened.  
Six months into the program, they realized that  
they had a gold-mine on their hands. Data poured  
in, unbelievable and totally unexpected results  
blew previous expectations out of the water. By  
the end of the first trial run, new studies were  
being hashed out and the embryonic structure for  
training programs designed to brutally expose the  
weaknesses in the individual, the partnership and  
the team were being laid out. The CIA was  
ecstatic, law enforcement beta testers-local,  
city and state - were in a state of psychological  
shock and the military was making grabbing  
noises. The FBI just grinned and booked out the  
next six month segment of the program while the  
bean-counters stared in disbelief as cost-  
recovery began to look more like ( gasp!)-  
profit.

The FBI, the website and the official letterhead  
called it the National HRT Psychological Testing  
and Training Program.

Survivors just called it The Maze.

*************************************

I searched through the gathered pairs of agents  
and tried to locate the four teams which belonged  
to me. Above the sounds of eighty people shifting  
and anxious to get started, I could hear the  
amplified voice of SAC Tony Garnes as he went  
through the final pep talk.

"...have no place in this exercise. I don't care  
if your dog died, your wife left you or your kids  
were just picked up for shoplifting. In there,  
you have one concern , one goal, one purpose.  
Your partner. In there, your partner is all you  
got...and vice versa. "

The team from Cleveland were standing by the  
closed doors to the main entrance. Both agents  
were twitching, rising up on their toes, ready  
for action and desperate to strut their stuff.  
Both Willis and Holden were assigned to computer  
crimes and I had a sneaking suspicion that this  
was the closest thing to field work this pair of  
agents had ever seen. Neither had a law  
enforcement background although Willis's file  
noted that she was an avid rock climber. It would  
be interesting to see how they reacted to this  
live action video game.

"...once this is over, you will have no more  
illusions. Not about yourself or about your  
partner. We are going to twist you, and then we  
are going to do our best to break you. And when  
it is all over, we're going to show you how to  
put the pieces back together again. Hopefully in  
a way that will keep you from getting yourself or  
your partner killed. Make no mistake ladies and  
gentlemen. We have your files, we have your  
psyche evals and we have total access to every  
single item in your personal jackets. And we are  
going to use it all."

My second team was standing off to the side, both  
agents carefully rooting through their packs and  
double-checking their weapons. The actions  
themselves were commendable, but their body  
language was...problematic. SACs had specifically  
been asked for the best teams fitting the program  
criteria for this study. If this team had been  
working together for the minimum three years  
demanded, then they had better hope that they  
never got a field assignment. I was getting  
absolutely no sense of any synchronicity in their  
movements - not even the standard like/dislike  
and basic acknowledgement of identity that most  
humans gave off as a matter of course. Oh well.  
Whatever it was would come out in the course of  
events.

It was my job to make sure of it.

"...not about blame. Nor are there always right  
and wrong ways of doing things. But you cannot  
operate in ignorance. If you are going to react,  
do so in the full knowledge that you, as a team  
and as part of a team, are choosing to act in  
this way because this is the way you work best.  
Many of you will have taken on certain roles and  
attitudes because this is the way you started and  
this is the way it has always worked for you. But  
people change, and some of you may have grown  
beyond these roles and may be trapped within  
them."

My third team was waiting patiently, listening  
carefully to the SAC and glancing at each other  
every once in a while to catch the other's  
reaction. Marshal was ex-SFPD and Sanchez was an  
ex-Marine. The memo had specifically requested  
that the SACs recommend their best. With these  
two, I was actually confident that we had gotten  
it. Despite the heavy weighting of pairs with  
military or law enforcement background, I did not  
have to be a profiler to see that barely half of  
these teams were as confident in their  
partnerships as they would need to be. It was  
too early to tell if it was because of the  
baseline criteria or if it was because of the  
nature of the program itself.

Some of the SACs were beginning to avoid  
sending working teams they wanted back in one  
piece.

"...over the next three days, you and we are  
going to find out exactly who and what you are  
and if that is where you should be. I kid you not  
people, this is going to be a painful process. We  
are going to find every bruise, every insecurity  
and every fear and we are going to poke it, prod  
it and jab it with a knife. We are going to rip  
it out, hold it up to public scrutiny and then we  
are going to stomp on it. "

Where the hell was my fourth set of agents? A  
second visual sweep failed to turn up any faces  
matching the ones in the file folders I was  
holding. Growling under my breath I thumbed my  
throat mic and ear-piece combination to an open  
link.

"Farrow to Command"

"Command here. What can I do for ya Jamie?"

"You can tell me where my Delta team is."

I winced as the voice on the other end of the  
link snorted.

"Lost them already have you?"

I could overhear a set of voices saying something  
about a bet. I groaned as I considered what the  
next three days were going to be like if it was  
starting already. Hell, the kitty was already up  
about fifty bucks just because the elusive pair  
had actually shown up this morning. Apparently,  
there had been some doubt on that issue. At the  
rate the bets were filling the dry-erase board on  
the command center wall, my Delta team just might  
be responsible for the biggest cash kitty in the  
history of the FBI.

Wonderful.

"According to the blinking green dots, they  
should be somewhere in your vicinity. You want  
sound?'

What the hell. "Might as well."

My ear-piece crackled and the sudden faint echo  
of the noise behind me not only confirmed that  
they were somewhere close, but that they were  
also wearing their FBI approved project fatigues.  
The ones with the transmitters built into the  
buttons. So, if they had gone so far as to come  
out dressed to play, where the hell were they?

"...notice anything odd about the class mix,  
Scully?"

"You mean other than the fact we are all male-  
female pairs? No Mulder, not at all."

There was a decided pause before Mulder spoke.

"What?"

"You don't find all of this annoying?"

"Not really."

"You don't find it insulting that they've rounded  
us all up like some sort of exhibit at the zoo?"

"Nope. You want to know why?"

"I'm afraid to ask."

" Because while all those shrinks are out there  
looking for the men from Mars and the women from  
Venus, the FBI agents are going to kick their  
collective asses."

I finally spotted them. A tall dark haired man  
and a short red-headed woman standing over by the  
billboard map of the multi-leveled game complex.  
My eyes had passed over them at least twice  
without noticing them and I was at a loss as to  
explain why. Both looked surprising natural in  
their fatigues although nothing about them  
screamed military. Agent Mulder was fixated on  
the billboard with unnatural intensity while  
Agent Scully stared up at him with amusement and  
a casual tilt to her head that should have looked  
awkward and did not.

Comfortable, I thought suddenly. That's the word  
I was looking for. They looked poised, alert and  
absolutely comfortable. Where had I seen that  
combination of factors before?

The agents behind me started shifting as  
backpacks were shouldered and the game director  
started calling out starting orders. Thirty-nine  
teams of agents started lining up before one of  
four doors. My Delta team made forty. Each pair  
would be given fifteen minutes to clear the doors  
and get moving before the next team would be sent  
in behind them. Each agent was equipped with a  
semi-automatic paint pistol and two extra clips.  
Each ammo clip carried ten rounds of splatter  
paint pellets and once inside the game zone,  
everyone except your partner was the enemy.

"How badly do you want to put the boots to their  
bell curve, Scully?"

I could see the teeth flash from fifty feet away.

"Funky poaching, Mulder?"

"We're even dressed in black."

I closed my eyes and sighed.

I had no idea what they were talking about, but I  
suspected it meant it was going to be a long  
three days.

*********************************************

Mulder may have had a photographic memory, but he  
usually did not bother to do maps. Too much  
detail. If he did not notice it, he could not  
remember it. It was one of the reasons he still  
studied crime scene photos long after they had  
been engraved into his gray matter. Scully also  
had a sneaky suspicion that the process of  
comparing the actual photo to his memory was part  
of the way he evaluated details. In any case, he  
still had to look at the map in his head and that  
took just as long as reading a regular paper  
copy. He had long since told her that any benefit  
they might gain was far outweighed by the weird  
flashbacks he got when driving.

Which was why she usually did the navigating.

Just because he normally did not memorize them,  
however, did not mean that he could not. The  
compound was twenty acres of interconnected  
buildings and tunnels. Many of the buildings  
extended as far as six levels underground and the  
many possible routes had been designed to give  
the HRT the maximum amount of flexibility when  
choosing the skill being trained and the level of  
difficulty being assigned. For this exercise,  
four suggested routes of varying lengths and  
difficulty had been assigned based on the agenda  
of the exercise and the type of equipment that  
the participants would be carrying. Agents had  
the leeway to choose which route they wanted to  
take based on their own skills and competitive  
spirit.

But they were suggested routes only , and as  
anyone could have told the game organizers,  
Mulder did not always take suggestion well. Since  
the agents were only given partial maps of the  
game zone - the parts covered by their suggested  
routes - wandering out of bounds usually only  
occurred by accident, not design. Scully had  
taken one look at her partner's narrow-eyed  
contemplation of the complex map and left her  
game supplied map in her backpack. Wherever they  
were going, it was not on the map. While everyone  
else was using the time waiting in line to make  
last minute battle plans, she stretched out on a  
nearby picnic table and took a nap.

Agents were free to choose their own route as  
long as they passed through at least five of  
forty possible game zones. Each game zone  
represented an exercise or psychological test the  
agents would be required to undergo. Each test  
was carefully scripted and agents would receive  
in-depth analysis of their performance after the  
game. What the agents were not told, was that  
their handlers had a range of exercises built  
around each target weakness and could chose which  
exercise to hit them with based on their  
psychological profiles and the results of  
previous exercises.

Agent teams could be eliminated from the game in  
one of two ways. After twelve hours, they could  
be shot by another agent pair or they could be  
taken out by various types of hostiles played by  
staff members. The latter was usually only found  
during military style training exercises. With  
the exception of CIRG personnel, the FBI was more  
concerned with the psychological performance of  
its agents during the scripted exercises, not  
the physical.

Agents were under twenty-four hour surveillance  
by VCU profilers and CIA psychological warfare  
specialists. The compound itself was covered by  
various forms of hidden audio and video pick-ups  
with the game zones being inundated with  
everything from infrared to night vision  
equipment. Every aspect of the agents'  
communication be it verbal or nonverbal was  
taped and tagged for analysis. If the agents had  
any hidden weaknesses, the Command center would  
find them.

The final stage of the game was a complex problem  
solving exercise that supposedly depended on the  
agents having learned something about  
communication , cooperation and trust for the  
exercise to be resolved successfully.

Ironically, there seemed to be no middle of the  
road with many of the partnerships. In the  
crucible that was the Maze, either they  
strengthened, or they shattered. Bureaucratically,  
senior management and OPR were beginning to  
wonder if the results were worth the pain.  
The CIA and the FBI profilers just shrugged.

Better in the Maze than in the field. 

*********************************

I made it back to the Command Center before the  
first of my four teams were sent through the  
doors. My two assistants were busy observing body  
language and making notes for further study and  
possible application in the field exercises.  
Lieutenant (JG) Kathy Kramer, a psychological  
warfare specialist from the US army on loan to  
the CIA specifically for Project Pygmalion, was  
tapping a pen thoughtfully against her lip as she  
frowned . I stepped up behind her and peered over  
her shoulder at the monitor.

Delta team.

Gosh. What a surprise.

Lt. Kramer twisted her head and met my eyes. She  
pointed the end of her pen at a sleeping Scully.

"According to her file, that should be extremely  
out of character."

I contemplated the sleeping agent for a long  
moment, then cocked an eyebrow at Kramer.

"Military experience?"

She hesitated. According to the files of both  
agents they had been scooped up by the FBI  
directly out of their respective university  
programs. Extremely unusual and someone had  
pulled more than one string to do it. It had been  
fairly obvious that the VCU had been doing some  
hard-core recruiting. It was also obvious that  
both agents had been dodging some fairly  
dedicated attempts to patriate them into the BSU  
fold. Or repatriate in Mulder's case.

Those files had been easy to access.

What was not quite so obvious was what exactly  
they had been doing when they were not chasing  
serial killers. Officially, they investigated  
reports of UFO's and paranormal phenomena. I had  
been unable to access much more than the official  
case report summaries, but Kramer had speculated  
that maybe it was something like the old Project  
Bluebook. That opinion had made sense right up  
until she accessed their medical records.

Someone really needed to teach these two how to  
duck.

Both Kramer and I had begun to suspect that this  
so-called X-Files department was just a front.  
Whatever these two were, they were clearly more  
than paper pushers. After running into the third  
tight-lipped, high security block in a row, I had  
speculated rather sarcastically, that maybe  
werewolves existed after all. I mean, why else  
all the red tape? Kramer had just snorted. Her  
theory, which made a hell of a lot more sense ,  
was that the two were undercover operators of  
some kind. Their field agent status gave them the  
perfect alibi and ability to drop out of sight at  
a moment's notice.

Unfortunately, the first CIA operative we  
suggested it to nearly killed himself laughing.

"Spooky Mulder and Doc Ice? You've got to be  
kidding. Those two go missing for more than three  
days and we've got fifty websites screaming that  
we offed them. Then the FBI gets one hundred and  
one more requests for their travel records  
through the freedom of information act. Their  
photos show up more often on the fringe sites  
than Elvis sightings. Believe me, if their  
reports say they were in Montana, you can be sure  
that some MUFON nut got a photo of them. Hell,  
that's where we get half our confirmation on what  
they are up to. Have you seen the clearance  
levels that get slapped on their after action  
reports?"

Which really begged the question as to why the  
CIA was keeping tabs on these two agents in the  
first place. But it also shot our favorite theory  
all to hell and back. So we were back to square  
one.

Which meant that I was not asking if Agent Scully  
had military experience. I was asking if her  
actions made any sense from a military or combat  
operational sense. I had seen HRT agents do the  
same thing under different circumstances. Once  
they all knew what was supposed to happen and it  
was just a matter of "hurry up and wait". But I  
had never seen one of them snoozing at the  
beginning of the game. Not this game.

Basically, she was ceding all control of the  
strategy and planning to her partner. And with  
it, all responsibility. Technically Mulder was  
the senior agent, but Kramer was right. Based on  
their files, I would have expected her to take a  
more active role. Or maybe it was not the files  
so much as the looks and comments I had gotten  
while doing my research. However, the case file  
summaries were clearly stamped with Mulder's bias  
and it was obviously his beliefs driving the non-  
assigned investigations. Maybe she *was* little  
more than a follower after all. A valuable  
follower mind, but not the Pygmalion model I had  
been hoping to find. I was honest enough to admit  
that I was disappointed. From a couple of the  
comments about her I had expected someone more  
aggressive. A little less stereotypically  
feminine and a little more...something extra.

Face it, I told myself ruefully, you have been  
looking for the dynamic duo all morning.

It's not their fault the rumors got out of hand.

So I was just a bit unprepared for what happened  
next.

Agent Mulder woke his partner with a gentle hand  
on her shoulder. He grinned at her and she  
squinted, groaned once, and yawned. Then they  
both shouldered their packs. Kramer, BSU profiler  
Agent Mike Siles, and I watched them with  
professional care, but no real expectation of  
surprise. They lined up in front of their door  
and waited patiently for the staff member  
guarding the entrance to give them the go-ahead.

We had been given a little advanced warning, I  
realized later.

Mulder's eyes drifted to his partner, "I'm in the  
zone, Scully"

Kramer's eyebrows shot up when Scully snorted,  
"Just don't get our hands chopped off and  
I'll be happy."

"Oh yea of little faith."

"Show me the money, G-man."

But that was *all* the warning they gave. The  
staffer clicked his stopwatch and gestured for go  
and both agents sauntered through the door...and  
then they were gone.

Agents Siles jerked upright in his chair with a  
single,"What the hell?". Kramer cursed and I  
found myself a little less disappointed.

Without a word, Mulder had sprung into a ground  
eating lope, his partner an easy two steps  
behind. Mulder showed no hesitation as he took  
turn after turn...and neither did his partner.  
Despite the fact that I knew for a fact that she  
had no clue where they were going, she pounded  
along behind Mulder as if she had no doubts about  
their destination and how to get there.

Which answered our earlier question about  
operational field experience in a backhanded sort  
of way.

These definitely were not pencil pushers.

Siles muttered swear words in English, Swahili  
and Russian as he furiously tapped commands into  
his system, bringing several unanticipated camera  
systems on-line. Within ten minutes it was  
obvious that the agents were not using the map  
and five minutes after that they left the FBI  
game grid and ventured into HRT territory.

Notwithstanding the annoyance and extra work this  
was going to generate, I found myself grinning. I  
was getting even less disappointed by the minute.  
By taking the route that they had, they had cut  
several hours off their transit times. Despite  
the fact that they had been one of the last teams  
to go, they had not only caught up to, they had  
passed the first teams through the door.

Maybe we were going to see a few fireworks  
after all.

All five of the game zones were pre-assigned and  
mandatory. Which meant that they could not avoid  
their fellow agent teams forever. By getting  
ahead of their teammates however, Mulder and  
Scully had neatly avoided at least one ambush  
that had already almost claimed one agent pair.  
Of course, the agents in question never realized  
that our staffers had foiled the attempt on  
purpose.

It would not do to have the agents killed off too  
quickly.

Riley's Bravo team got points for the effort,  
though.

Then my Delta team was go for Game Zone One.

The stated objective was simple. Go in one door  
and leave by the other. Everyone but your  
partner is considered hostile. Easy.

Oh Yeah.

Right.

The room was enormous. Four hundred feet by four  
hundred feet, the room had a total floor area of  
four acres and unbeknownst to the game players  
before they stepped into it, it was three floors  
high. It was a maze in miniature. An endless  
series of office style hallways and steel core  
doors. It was also the first test of the  
partnership in separation. The doors were  
computer controlled and the controller sitting in  
the Command Center not only had the ability to  
shut doors, he could move sections of walls,  
opening some hallways and closing others. And if  
the partners did not move far enough apart to be  
separated by a suddenly closing door, there was a  
team of Marines standing by to make sure that it  
happened.

And sometimes the Marines were used just to make  
life interesting.

Five minutes after Mulder and Scully stepped into  
GZ-1, they were blindsided. Duct-taped hand and  
foot, they were separated, blind-folded and  
carried to different floors of the zone and  
dumped. Neither stayed that way for long. Fingers  
soon removed blindfolds and ripped the duct-tape  
from mouths, teeth soon chewed the duct-tape from  
wrists and freed hands soon freed feet. Then,  
predictably, both started hollering for their  
partner.

Actually, Mulder and Scully started yelling as  
soon as their mouths were free, in both cases,  
even before the blindfolds were off. Surprisingly  
though, they both shut up as soon as they  
realized they were not within shouting distance.  
I had thought they might keep it up a bit longer  
but I was not particularly disturbed when they  
did not. Not yet anyway. It was 50/50 what the  
agents would do at this point. Obviously, their  
priority was finding their counterpart, but at  
the same time, they knew there were hostiles in  
the area. Yelling at the top of your lungs-while  
a good way for your partner to locate you, is  
also a good way to tell the bad guys where you  
are.

Two hours later, both agents were lost, confused  
and increasingly angry and flustered. Of course,  
that's what they were supposed to be. More than  
half the agents started out making maps. We  
usually let them go on with that for about an  
hour before we started moving walls around. It  
was a general rule not to have any designated  
staff "hostiles" within shooting or strangling  
distance for about twenty minutes after the  
agents were made aware of this fact.

It usually made for a hell of a show on the  
camera footage though. Some of the temper  
tantrums were...impressive.

In this case, Scully simply stared narrowly at  
the wall which had rumbled into view and  
destroyed the validity of her painstakingly drawn  
map. Then she carefully placed both paper and  
pencil back in her pack and continued to head in  
the same direction she had been going. Mulder  
gave his wall a petulant kick and flipped a bird  
to the nearest camera but did pretty much the  
same. Considering that the whole point was to  
raise frustration levels to the breaking point,  
this was a disappointingly calm response as far  
as I was concerned. Everyone I had talked too had  
mentioned the agents' devotion to each other, and  
I had expected this exercise to trigger some  
interesting emotional outbursts.

I did not expect to nearly get Mulder killed.

Well, maybe not killed. The walls were programmed  
to stop if the sensors detected anything between  
the rising wall and the roof. Things like hands  
and fingers. But he could have broken his neck  
easily enough.

The goal had been to push the frustration level.  
Both agents had quickly made their way back down  
to the first floor and steadfastly stayed there.  
Logically, this made sense since this was  
presumably where the exit was located and that  
made the most logical rendezvous point. Since I  
could not lure them into wandering fruitlessly on  
the second and third floors, I decided to let the  
agents get close enough to see each other and  
then separate them.

The judicious use of hostile Marines got Mulder  
moving in the right direction. With six of them  
hot on his tail, he was just rounding the corner  
of a long hallway when I dropped the wall at the  
far end to reveal his partner. Predictably,  
Mulder started racing toward her. Scully took up  
position and started picking off his pursuers.  
She had taken out two of them when I hit the  
button that started the wall raising between  
them.

The expressions of sheer fury which swept over  
both agents' faces when they realized they had  
been played and were about to be separated again  
was frightening. Watching the tape later, I was  
struck by the instinctive and absolute co-  
ordination of purpose between the agents. At a  
dead run, Mulder holstered his pistol, abandoning  
the Marines behind him to his partner. The  
Marines at this juncture were focused solely on  
keeping him from rejoining Scully. A point, the  
Marine sergeant said later, which was not lost on  
her.

Considering that the next three KIA Marines went  
down with paint pellets to the groin, I had to  
agree.

The wall was almost four feet high and still  
moving when Mulder hit it. Slapping hands to the  
top, he launched himself up and over with a  
tremendous heave of his shoulder muscles and with  
all the built up inertia of 180lbs moving at full  
speed down a 300 foot hallway. He shot over the  
top of the wall, then tucked and rolled  
awkwardly, the bulk of the pack throwing his  
balance and direction off as he came to his feet.  
Sheer momentum would have carried him right past  
his partner except for the fact that she threw  
herself into his path, left arm snagging his  
right. Her counterweight pulled them into an  
ungraceful spin and as they both held on tight,  
they were slammed up against a nearby wall.

Obviously fearing that any separation would bring  
down another wall, both agents had their weapons  
in hand and scanning the hallways before they  
completely recovered from the impact. Mulder had  
his arm wrapped tightly around her waist and if  
the death grip she had on his forearm was any  
clue, Mulder would be wearing finger-sized bruises  
for days.

Kramer and the Marines were impressed. Siles  
muttered something about taking games way too  
seriously. Considering his job on this project  
was to promote exactly that, I had to wonder if  
there wasn't a second agenda to that remark.  
Either that or sour grapes. I, myself, wanted a  
chance to review the tapes before I made up my  
mind about how I felt.

But I was beginning to understand some of those  
backhanded remarks.

This was not a pair you wanted to find yourself  
coming between.

Ever.

We also learned quickly that their unity  
extended into other areas. With my best tool for  
raising frustration levels gone, I decided to let  
them stew for a couple of hours while I reviewed  
tapes. GZ-1 was the longest of all the game  
segments and there were actually three agent  
teams moving through the game zone at the same  
time. That was the other reason for the movable  
walls. To keep the teams separated and unaware of  
each other. So I was totally comfortable leaving  
the agents to wander pointlessly.

Unfortunately, no one told them they were  
supposed to get frustrated and start taking it  
out on each other. Kramer just shook her head as  
they spent a hour in serious debate over the  
merits and shortcomings of various rental cars.  
"Definitely field agents" was the consensus.

They knew how to handle boredom, and fruitless  
and aimless wandering did not seem to bother them  
in the slightest. Hell, once they got started  
profiling Hannibal the Cannibal they actually  
seemed to be having fun. That was until Mulder  
decided enough was enough and started engaging in  
some psychological warfare of his own.

The way his partner's eyebrows shot up when he  
launched into a rousing rendition of Henry the  
Eighth might have been amusing if Kramer and I  
were not busy watching Command Center heads pop  
up all across the room. When Mulder started  
emphasizing the word "Henry" and singing directly  
into the button microphone on the lapel of her  
coveralls, I saw one of the most evil grins I had  
ever seen spread across Agent Scully's face.

Then she joined him.

I'm Henry, the Eighth I am. Henry, the Eighth I  
am ,I am

Funny how I never realized just how annoying that  
song could be.

"You want to know the best part, Scully?"

I did.

Maybe then we could do something about it.

I got married to the widow next door, she's been  
married seven times before.

The bastard actually smirked right into one of  
the cameras. Considering how well hidden they  
were, that was a feat in itself.

"They're not allowed to turn off the mikes."

Oh fuck.

Hell if I know how she did it, but that grinchy  
grin got bigger. Then they linked arms and  
started down the hallway like Dorothy down the  
bloody yellow brick road. They even had the gall  
to do that damn sideways step hop skip.

And every one was an Henry, HENRY!, She  
wouldn't have a Willie or a Sam. I'm the eighth  
old man, I'm Henry. Henry the eighth I am...

They had definitely seen way too many movies  
together.

The Marines thought it was funny.

By the end of the next hour the betting pool was  
also a hell of a lot bigger. The issue at hand  
was who would crack first. The odds were running  
three to one against the house.

I will always think that that had been some sort  
of sign.

It was interesting to note that despite caroling  
at the top of their lungs, the agents still  
managed to take out another set of hostile  
Marines. These ones were just there to herd, not  
separate, but the agents did not wait to find  
out. Mulder did not even stop singing.

Four "dead" Marines later, the agents looked at  
each other, paused, then took a deep breath.

Second verse, same as the first...

Half the Command Center groaned. The other half  
were fingering weapons and wearing tight smiles.  
Kramer finally surrendered and triggered the  
hallway sequence that would lead them out of  
GZ-1. From the looks of gratitude around the  
room, she could have asked for anything at that  
moment up to and including volunteers to father  
her children.

Agents: 1 ; House: 0

On the upside, they stopped singing.

They then breezed right through GZ-2. Although if  
it was not for the fact that it was marked  
clearly on the map-the map neither had pulled out  
to read- they could have been forgiven for  
missing that point. The zone was dimly lit,  
filled with boxes and crates that made great  
places for hostiles to hide. Four steps into the  
room, the strobe lights came on.

It was supposed to be disorientating. Agents were  
supposed to find themselves confused and under  
fire and cautious about shooting barely visible  
figures who may or may not have been their  
partners.

That was the theory, anyway.

The reality was that both agents seemed to have  
an almost preternatural instinct for the other's  
presence. Which meant that anyone else was dead  
meat. One of the Marines took advantage of a  
moment when Mulder was temporarily out of her  
field of vision to try and sneak up on his  
partner. She did not even turn around to look  
first before spinning to shoot. Whatever it was  
that alerted her to his presence must have also  
told her it was not her partner. The Marine took  
a paint pellet square in the chest.

The Marine sergeant studying the action over  
Kramer's shoulder had a slight frown between his  
eyes as he watched all of this. He started to  
open his mouth at one point, then just shook his  
head and sighed. The only comment he made was  
something about them being in the wrong program.

Then both agents were through the zone and  
pounding down the hallways and back into HRT game  
space. I gave them full credit for not dropping  
their guards even when it should have been  
obvious that they were alone. Sixteen hours after  
entering the Maze, they disappeared into the  
ductwork to sleep. By what was obviously  
longstanding tradition since there did not appear  
to be any discussion needed, Mulder took the  
first watch while Scully slept.

They also took paranoia a bit further than I or  
any of the game designers intended by treating  
the food rations as a potential hazard. A short  
debate over the merits of eating at all ensued  
briefly and finally it was decided that they  
would only eat individually, right before  
sleeping. That way if the food was drugged, only  
one of them would be incapacitated at a time.

Siles and I were mute with astonished disbelief,  
but both Kramer and the Marine Sergeant were  
nodding with hard-eyed approval. I also had the  
sneaking suspicion that HRT was about to get a  
new wrinkle added to their program.

One of my teams had already managed to get  
themselves eliminated despite the Command  
Center's best efforts. Willis and Holden,  
Computer Crimes, had fallen apart in GZ-1 and  
never gotten it back together. They blamed each  
other for the pointlessness and lack of progress  
with an unexpected vengeance. Then Willis stalked  
away from Holden and when the Marines attacked,  
they defended themselves individually instead of  
as a unit. The Marine aiming to miss actually hit  
Willis accidentally when she did not turn back to  
her partner like he expected. At which point they  
had both gone stark raving loony tunes, each  
screaming that the other was at fault and  
dragging up irritating habits and quirks they had  
lived with for three years as proof. The Marines  
had to physically restrain them from attacking  
each other.

OPR was going to be thrilled about this one.

I , on the other hand, thanked my lucky stars  
none of us would never meet that pair in the  
field someday. I have no regrets about what we  
did to them.

None at all.

Like Mulder and Scully, the other two teams had  
gone to ground for some snooze time. Satisfied  
that the nightwatch could handle the next few  
hours, I decided to grab a few hours of sleep  
myself. I still tell myself that there was  
nothing I would have noticed. Nothing I could  
have done.

But seven hours later, Mulder and Scully entered  
GZ-3 and everything went to hell.

******************************

Darkness.

The game zone was pitch black and the blaring  
shriek of several alarms interfered with her  
ability to sense Mulder. He had been several  
steps ahead of her when the lights went out and  
the alarms went off.

She held herself motionless, pistol ready.

A male hand suddenly touched her lightly on the  
shoulder and made a familiar sweep down her back  
and came to rest where it always did. She relaxed  
with a small sigh. Mulder. A gentle pressure  
directed her away from their previous heading and  
Scully moved unhesitatingly in the indicated  
direction. She was four steps away before she  
realized that something was off with his gait.

Senses alert for anything, she concentrated on  
keeping her footsteps steady.

Two more steps and a prickle of unease crept down  
her spine Then the shock of what was wrong  
crashed over her. Hours of running had seen both  
of them sweating into their fatigues. Every time  
he had come close she had found herself bathed in  
a scent as familiar to her as that of her  
favorite shampoo. In the darkness it had been  
reassuring in the same way it had reassured her  
sleeping mind during all those hours on stake-  
outs. A scent that was conspicuously absent.  
Eyes widening uselessly in fury she whirled,  
pistol coming up to fire. Instantly , arms  
wrapped themselves around her from behind, the  
fake Mulder grabbing the paint pistol from her  
hands.

She opened her mouth to yell a warning to her  
partner and instantly a gloved hand clamped down  
over her face. Through the alarms she thought she  
could hear Mulder cautiously moving in her  
direction, drawn by the noise of the scuffle.  
She heard him call her name and the worried note  
in his voice triggered something totally  
unexpected, something uncontrollable deep inside.  
Scully trembled slightly, her body starting to  
shake , not with fear, but with a primitive rage  
that should have terrified her. Part of her  
forebrain yammered at the howling madness.

This was a game. Only a game. These were just  
players.

Other instincts examined that thought carefully.  
Coldly analytical. Then considered the betrayal  
of trust, the uselessness of the deceit and the  
absolute cruelty and potential for damage of the  
deception.

Not a game, her mind judged. Not anymore.

Primordial instinct took over.

Her hands were still trapped by whoever had taken  
her gun and her arms were pinned to her side by  
the man behind her. But she still had her legs.  
Ruthlessly she kicked upward, feeling combat  
boots slam into bone and muscle. A masculine yell  
as the hands wrapped around her wrist were ripped  
away by the force of the blow. Instantly she bent  
her knee and, letting the man holding her take  
all her weight, yanked the back-up weapon from  
the makeshift holster on her ankle. She fired  
twice in rapid succession at the swearing body  
directly in front of her then twisted her hand  
and fired into the man behind her.

Ignoring the pained grunt he gave as the paint  
pellet connected at close range, she sank her  
teeth into the palm of the hand holding her  
silent. With a curse, the man released her and  
she was yelling for Mulder to get down even as  
she took aim at the place where the traitor  
waited. The sound of a body hitting the floor  
released her hold on her trigger finger and she  
fired blindly in a deadly overlapping pattern.  
Seven bullets later she hit the clip release,  
letting the empty clip fall to the floor and  
slammed in her spare. This time she held her fire  
and waited for the bastard to make a move - any  
move.

Obviously trusting his night goggles over their  
hearing, he made a run for the door. Two paint  
bullets from two separate guns nailed him on the  
way out. The alarms died. In the silence, the two  
agents waited through the sounds of retreat until  
all that they could hear was the harshness of  
their own breathing.

"Scully?"

"Yeah?"

"What the fuck just happened?"

Scully could hear her own breaths getting shorter  
as she struggled to contain the explosively  
expanding rage that threatened to shatter the  
containment vessel. Instead of easing, the  
shaking grew worse. The genie was well and truly  
out of the bottle...and she found she welcomed  
the release of the floodgates. So much anger, so  
much pain...too much control. For too long she  
had had no target...just shadowy men and shadows  
who took again and again ...her certainties, the  
life she could have lived...and now they had  
tried to take her partner.

She tried again to tell herself that this had  
just been part of the game. There was no reason  
to suspect that this was another Consortium  
test...another attempt to make them doubt their  
loyalties to each other. Swirling in and around  
this thought was the burgeoning desire to stand  
up and tell everyone once and for all what they  
were letting themselves in for if they tried  
again. Her actions had stated her beliefs before,  
but she realized with a flourishing sense of  
freedom that she wanted to explain it to them  
more directly. Wanted to hurl it into their  
faces. Dana Scully was not resigned and she would  
not go quietly into that good night.

They wanted to see a reaction?

She would give them a goddamn reaction.

"Mulder?'

"Yeah?"

His voice was cautious.

"Who sets up these little tests?"

Slight whispers of fabric on concrete as he  
pulled himself to a sitting position. In her  
mind's eye she could see the tilt to his head,  
the hesitant curiosity...and the growing  
conviction  
that someone had just pushed his partner too far.  
A small quirk of her lips acknowledged the unseen  
tension and protective anger that would be  
filling his eyes as he looked in her direction.

"VCU and the CIA for the most part."

"And can you think of a good constructive reason  
for anyone to try and lure me away by pretending  
to be you? A very good imitation of you?"

A slight indrawn hiss of breath was the only  
reply. She smiled grimly then snapped her head  
back and yelled a challenge to the unseen  
cameras and microphones. The darkness was  
liberating and she found it easier than she  
expected to get the sheer volume she needed to  
express her rage. The echoes in the large empty  
room were particularly satisfying.

"What was it you bastards? A warning? Don't be  
too quick to follow your partner? Look how easy  
we can take you from him? Look how easily we can  
use you as bait? Well fuck you."

Mulder's mouth dropped and ten startled heads  
swiveled as Command Center watchers stared at  
camera screens in bemusement as Special Agent  
Dana Scully, Ice Queen extraordinaire, totally  
fucking lost it. They watched the multi-colored  
silhouette of her partner stand cautiously, gun  
out but doing nothing to calm her down. On the  
green-tinted screen reflecting the night-vision  
lenses they could see that he had managed to  
close his mouth, but he was still standing mute  
in wide-eyed astonishment as his partner  
insulted and threatened an entire FBI department  
with CIA witnesses.

"Was it a joke? You VCU bastards get a little  
bored cooped up in your lair and decide to come  
out and yank old Spooky's tail? You little  
pissants still upset about Patterson? Well fuck  
you too. You ever profiled a profiler? Get ready  
to duck, assholes."

VCU jaws dropped in a comical imitation of  
Mulder's earlier shock. A muttered "Holy fuck"  
echoed from the back of the Command Center as  
Scully flung her crazy partner onto the  
battlefield and the idiot just started to grin.

"And for the CIA bastard up there taking notes  
for the enemy. You want an answer to take back  
with you? You want to know just how far I'll go?  
How's this..."

Her low-voiced growl was deadly in its arctic  
intensity.

"...if you ever try that in real life I will find  
you. Then I will crack your chest and rip out  
your lungs and feed them to my partner's fish  
for breakfast. "

One of the younger BSU profilers reached out a  
hand as if to touch the screen, his face a murky  
combination of fascination, arousal and that odd  
glaze to the eyes that said he was trying to get  
inside her head. The digital Scully slammed her  
once back-up pistol into her holster and headed  
back in the direction Mulder had been going  
before they got ambushed. No one in the Command  
Center had a single doubt she meant exactly what  
she said.

"Come on Mulder. I've got a sudden urge to go  
blast the crap out of something."

"I can't mind-fuck the entire CIA, Scully."

"Then we're going to do what you do best. We are  
going to piss them off."

I turned my head as I became aware of a silent  
presence standing at my shoulder. One of the CIA  
shrinks - Detweiller was his name - was studying  
the screen with an intent expression that  
bothered me more than it should have. Uneasily I  
recalled Scully's comment about note-taking  
spies.

Surely that was just paranoia talking.

"What's Mulder's reaction to all of this?"

I shared a wry look with the profiler next to me  
as we both glanced at an infra-red scan showing  
the familiar heat pattern of a man extremely  
turned on by surrounding events.

"Will he try to stop her?"

I smiled politely at the CIA agent, "I doubt  
it."

As if in answer, Mulder's voice echoed in the  
Command Center as the two agents slipped from the  
darkened room into the next. His tone was a smug  
combination of contentment and anticipation.

"Scully is in the zone."

The CIA agent snorted and reached for his cel-  
phone.

***********************************

Thirty minutes after the first call to battle,  
VCU and CIA team members watched with amusement  
as Mulder and Scully captured a team of  
infuriated agents and offered them a choice...  
join the fight or die now. Twenty minutes after  
that,the FBI stopped laughing. It took the CIA  
another three hours to realize what the VCU had  
already figured out.

Mulder and Scully were good at what they did. And  
they had a plan.

Off duty VCU profilers studied the screens with  
fascination. A make-shift table had been dragged  
into the back of the Command Center and the CIA  
and Navy personnel eyed the lunatics taking  
over the back of the room with varying degrees of  
disbelief and concern. I did not blame them.  
Manic energy seethed through gimlet-eyed bodies  
as they peered through red-rimmed eyes, tossed  
file folders back and forth and sent terrified  
administrative assistants scurrying between  
coffee maker and photocopier. Bits and pieces of  
conversation, argument and amazed commentary  
exploded into the air over the regular sounds of  
the game in play.

"...how the hell did he guess about the ...?"

"...haven't broken any of the rules?  
Unbelievable."

"...were you there when he...?"

"...Doc Ice has gone off the reservation..."

Still more people - CIA analysts, ex-VCU agents  
and several people I thought I recognized from  
CIRG - slowly slipped into the room. Spooky  
stories from the good old days were unearthed and  
retold in hushed tones by those who had been  
there-or who had known someone who was. Somebody  
managed to crack open a few of the less  
classified X-files and suddenly the stories had  
a new addition...Special Agent Dana Scully.

"Agent Farrow?"

I turned automatically, then swallowed as I  
matched the voice to the face glaring at me  
coldly.

"Sir. Good afternoon, Sir."

"Cut the crap Agent Farrow. I send you two of my  
best agents for a performance study and the next  
thing I know, I'm getting calls telling me that  
one of my agents has gone off the deep end. So  
give it to me short and to the point. What did  
you do? What has Mulder done? And what are you  
doing about it?"

"I hope you'll be able to appreciate the irony  
there, Walter. "

I turned to see one of the men who had been  
lurking quietly near the impromptu VCU command  
post walking over to join us. I had seen him  
flash CIA credentials to get into the room and  
from the reactions of the other spooks, they knew  
who he was. I had also gotten the impression that  
they were a bit surprised to find him here.  
Glancing at AD Skinner I saw that the man had  
adopted a closed expression, although his body  
language seemed cautious more than alarmed.

Interagency politics if I had to make a guess.

"Excuse me? " Skinner's tone was even.

The spook grinned,"It wasn't Mulder."

Both the AD's eyebrow climb skyward,"Scully? All  
of this because of Agent Scully? What the hell  
did she do?"

"Nearly broke the arm of one of the staff,  
challenged the VCU after kneeing them in the  
collective groin and declared war on the CIA." He  
flashed a genuinely amused smile,"I think that  
about covers it."

Skinner groaned and pinched the bridge of his  
nose. 'Fuck it Chalmers, if you've been messing  
with my agents..."

"I swear, Walt. It wasn't us. This project is on  
the level. Pygmalion is exactly what it says it  
is. You did warn the administration what you were  
sending them though, didn't you?'

Skinner growled,"What the hell are you talking  
about? They asked for my best male-female team of  
agents. That's what they got. What else was I  
supposed to tell them?"

The CIA agent stared at Skinner in disbelief.  
"Jesus, Walter. You let the VCU play mind games  
with these two without giving them a heads up?  
Even we're not that stupid. " He paused  
contemplatively, "Or that suicidal."

I was still trying to work my way through the  
subtext when the AD spun back in my direction and  
pinned me with a deadly glare. "What's been going  
on?"

I took refuge in the familiar structure of a  
situation report.

"They started taking over the game grid about  
four hours ago. Instead of advancing toward the  
objective, they've been systematically capturing  
their fellow teams of agents and convincing them  
to join the revolution. They've been...amazingly  
successful."

Chalmers gave a low-voiced chuckle,"What you are  
not being told is that they have been twisting  
the VCU's tail. Quite well I might add. Your  
agents work very well together."

Skinner growled,"Are you just going to keep  
rubbing in the salt or are you ready to tell me  
what's been going on?"

Chalmers sighed, then nodded," They're  
challenging the profilers directly. Each pair of  
agents they come across they...well, see for  
yourself. " He reached out and punched up a  
digital file. 'This is a record of the last  
confrontation."

Skinner watched quietly as the camera dutifully  
recorded the dimly lit silence of an empty  
corridor. Movement at the far end of the corridor  
captured the eye and three sets of eyes watched  
as two agents unknown to him made their way  
cautiously down the hall. They showed good form  
and the ex-Marine silently applauded their  
professional attitude as they advanced toward the  
invisible camera.

The capture was swift and unexpected.

One moment the agents were moving, the next they  
were holding their weapons in the air as ceiling  
tiles were punched to the floor and the agents  
found themselves boxed in between the visible  
arms and heads of Fox Mulder and his partner  
Dana Scully as they leaned down from their hiding  
places in the upper ductwork. Once the enemy  
weapons were dutifully placed on the floor and  
kicked away, Mulder and Scully swung down into  
the hallway and swiftly secured the agents with  
their own shoelaces.

Chalmers leaned toward Skinner, "This is the good  
part."

In one of the most seamless tag team approaches I  
have ever seen, Mulder and Scully didn't just  
flip the enemy...they subverted them. Even  
knowing the two agents, Skinner obviously had  
never suspected this aspect of their working  
dynamic. Somehow the two agents had pieced  
together a fairly accurate guess regarding the  
purpose of Pygmalion. Scully took the lead,  
letting them see her anger, her affronted sense  
of honor and all the accumulated frustration of  
being treated as a rat in a maze...then she let  
them break their teeth against her control. What  
made it all the more amazing was that mad as she  
was, I suspected that other motivations were  
driving the agent. But her stated motivations  
were doing the job nicely enough. Both of the  
captured agents were so focused on Scully that  
they forgot about Mulder watching and evaluating  
from the shadows. Forgot about it until he swept  
in with a few well chosen observations-usually  
aimed at the male agent of the pair. By the time  
the stunned and surprised agents recovered, they  
had joined the war effort.

"Hell of a strategy, huh?"

Skinner shrugged,"Mulder's always been good at  
figuring out which buttons to push. So everyone's  
in a snit because they're breaking the rules? "

Chalmers studied the AD with a look of mild  
surprise,"Hell no. VCU is pissed because your two  
agents are giving them the figurative finger.  
We've been trying for weeks to get these guys to  
open up. Hell, half those agents have refused to  
officially admit that they've even noticed that  
their partners are female. Mulder and Scully  
saunter in and suddenly they're having a regular  
group therapy session down there. If I wasn't so  
busy laughing my ass off I'd be foaming at the  
mouth."

He sighed.

"We totally overlooked how pissed off the men  
were. We knew they might be insulted on their  
partner's behalf, but we were so concerned about  
convincing the men that they could depend on  
their female partners we never considered the  
fact that we might be preaching to the choir.  
These guys are mad Walt. I mean really pissed.  
We give them female partners, tell them to deal  
with it...and when they do, no one believes them  
or gives them any credit. If they are sleeping  
with their partners, then she's somehow less  
credible as an agent. If they are not...then they  
must be gay. They are told to see their partners  
as equals and then when the inevitable happens  
and some of them fall in love with the person  
behind the badge, they are given no support  
whatsoever. Christ. It's a mess. And those close-  
mouthed macho male agents haven't stopped talking  
since your team got them started. Listen"

Before Skinner could tell him that these were  
things that Bureau management was actively trying  
not to notice, Chalmers had hit another switch.  
Unknown voices overlapped in conversation.

"...What the hell does that say about me huh? I  
felt like yelling that I was more than just a  
walking Y-chromosome that only thought with his  
dick..."

"...my wife doesn't believe we've never slept  
together. Sometimes I've just got to talk to  
her...I mean she's my partner. But Mary doesn't  
understand. ..."

"I get so turned on watching her mind work  
sometimes. Hell, we were covered in garbage,  
we're surrounded by cops, I'm standing there  
like I just got hit with lightening...and all I  
can think is...I love this woman."

" ... she's my partner. But she's not my type.  
Why should I have to feel like apologizing for  
that?"

"...We're not particularly close as people..."

" ...so we're laughing our asses off and this  
shrink just looks at us like we're nuts and says  
' couldn't you have chosen a phrase that was less  
demeaning to your partner?' and Rebecca looks at  
her and says "Demeaning? Lady, I'm the one that  
said it!..."

Chalmers silenced the speakers and gave Skinner a  
serious look, " Their little group of commandos  
started taking hostages about two hours ago. The  
staff members that went in looking to play their  
little mind games are now sitting under guard in  
one of the bunkers."

Skinner frowned,"So why the hell are you all  
getting so excited. If it's a problem, pull the  
plug."

I twisted my lips in a rueful smile," Because  
it's a pissing contest now. Between Spooky Mulder  
stories and X-Files about monsters under the bed  
your two agents are being turned into the local  
bugaboo. Everyone wants to be the one to bring  
them in. Hell, I'm hearing rumors that HRT wants  
a crack at them. All in fun, of course"

Skinner gave a short laugh,"Of course. Shit." he  
sighed again,"Urban legends in their own time."

Chalmers and I waited patiently as the AD  
considered the situation from whatever angles he  
needed to. Finally he looked up,"So what's being  
done?"

I shrugged lightly,"We're playing by the rules.  
We're also expanding the mandate. Originally we  
weren't looking for combat reactions, but ATF,  
HRT and the military all want to see how the  
male-female teams respond under fire. The mind-  
gamers use night vision but for now we're banning  
the equipment from the combat teams to keep it  
relatively fair. We're also prepared to expand  
the game beyond three days if necessary."

Skinner sighed, considered his problem children  
with less than total affection and then took it  
like a Marine.

So began an eighteen hour game of cat and mouse.  
Sixteen more staff members got taken hostage  
without casualties to either side. Mulder  
demanded money and safe passage, HRT cut the  
power. ATF sent in a four man rescue squad only  
to find that the hostages had been moved, the  
cameras deliberately rigged to send a false feed  
and the bunker was booby trapped with paint  
pellets from the extra clips. Scully agreed to  
let one of the hostages go - a man with an  
alleged heart condition - in exchange for food  
and water. Ten seconds after the hostage was  
safe, the hostage negotiator made the mistake of  
telling Scully that her father would be proud of  
her. Scully picked another hostage at random and  
shot him in the head.

Grumbling in annoyance, the VCU got together with  
HRT and set off a two pronged attack and  
unexpectedly captured Mulder. Scully's forces  
managed to pin them down in one of the bunkers  
where they lied and told her that her partner had  
been injured in the attack and if she surrendered  
that he would receive critical medical aide.  
Reportedly, Mulder told the HRT Commander that he  
had just made the biggest mistake of his life  
when ex-ATF smoke bombs and live bodies started  
dropping from the ceiling. Scully's team  
reported two minor injuries - all eight HRT died  
in the onslaught. Scully herself took out the HRT  
agent taking aim at her duct-taped partner.

More than a little annoyed about the deaths of  
their teammates and a bit embarrassed at the fact  
that they were not succeeding quite as rapidly as  
they had thought they would, HRT decided to  
revisit Waco and started playing golden oldies at  
brain thumping volumes. Mulder fell over laughing  
when they started playing Walking in Memphis ,  
then held out his hand to Scully. Surviving  
agents and hostages watched in surprise as the  
Ice Queen smiled, pulled him to his feet and the  
two agents waltzed their way through the  
impromptu concert. The rest of the agents jumped  
up to join them while the VCU and HRT glared at  
the camera screens as their weapon of torture was  
turned into a junior high sock hop.

Meanwhile, some of the more enterprising computer  
wizards at the Quantico campus had overheard that  
something odd was going on and it involved the  
VCU. Human curiosity being what it was, four of  
them hacked into the video feeds coming from the  
cameras inside the Maze. Before you could say  
"illegal access" they had created a website on  
the internal server and uploaded their favorite  
moments including one of Scully standing  
protectively over her partner as she took out one  
of the elite HRT. The IS department thought they  
were under attack when hits to the server  
threatened to drop the system within three hours.

Deciding it was better to give in gracefully  
rather than encourage half the population of the  
Quantico base to commit computer espionage, the  
FBI looked the other way as the IS department  
hastily erected a high volume mirror site and set  
up live time access to some of the cameras inside  
the Maze. Within hours, unofficial FBI, CIA and  
ATF office pools across the country numbered in  
the triple digits. One FBI accountant noted  
jokingly that they should have sold banner space  
and pop-up ads.

Unsuccessfully trying to access earlier footage  
from the game- and thus settle a few of the open  
bets that were speculating on how this whole  
thing got started, the four computer wizards were  
suddenly shocked to find their own system under  
attack. Before they could pull the plug, the  
phrase "Better than Doom, Man" scrolled across  
the screen and an anonymous server was dumping  
gigabytes of data into their system. All of which  
explained how Scully's rant and earlier footage  
of the partners' astonishing performance was  
suddenly being accessed by thousands of law  
enforcement and governmental personnel across the  
country. Bewildered as they were by the  
popularity of the revolt, the FBI and other  
senior government administration were even more  
bemused by the questions coming up in the newly  
created chat rooms dedicated to the event.

After spending two decades carefully looking the  
other way about the possibility of male agents  
sleeping with female partners, the issue was  
suddenly exploding across the web at the speed of  
cyber-light. There were a few snide comments and  
the expected questions about whether the agents  
were sleeping together. What shocked the  
administration however was how quickly the more  
disrespectful of the commentators were flamed off  
the site. Hundreds of law enforcement officers  
under fake names and using anonymous email  
addresses started asking pointed, bluntly honest  
questions of each other...and the administration  
was stunned by the pain and confusion implicit in  
the conversations. No one questioned whether or  
not Mulder and Scully or any of the other agents  
were sleeping together.

They did not care.

What many of them wanted to know was the next  
step in the equation. Once you've gone that next  
step...how do you make it work?

An anonymous military officer admitted to  
sleeping with a fellow officer and asked if any  
of the police officers had any suggestions how to  
juggle the public and the private relationships.  
The officer admitted that both of their careers  
were at risk despite the fact that they were  
outside the same chain of command and neither  
were married. The general reaction was one of  
honest support and genuine confusion about how to  
proceed. Like gates torn off a dam, thousands of  
military lurkers came up out of the shadows. Air  
Force, Army, Navy...every field, every rank,  
every department from the motor pool to military  
intelligence.

The military discovered to its surprise that  
most of the male soldiers thought it was just a  
matter of when, not if, women would be admitted  
to combat positions. Their biggest concern was  
whether promotion standards would be the same  
across the board. A curious admiral lurking on  
one of the chatrooms posed a cautious question.  
What about sexual tension in tight quarters and  
stressful situations?

The general answer? 

We're all adults. We'll deal with it.

And so, over one hundred thousand people who knew  
exactly what it took to trust your life to  
another's hands were watching when HRT and ATF  
made their final move. Thousands of law  
enforcement personnel groaned as the paint mines  
Mulder had sent their ex-military agents to dig  
up and reset exploded in hallways, painting HRT  
and ATF body armor in blood red acrylic that  
showed black on the green tinted night vision  
cameras. Despite the fact that most were rooting  
for Mulder and Scully directly, more than one law  
enforcement officer shuddered as he or she  
considered the damage the FBI guerrillas were  
inflicting. More than one teenager stood silent  
in a doorway and shivered as they watched as  
tears shimmered in their parents' eyes.

It was just a game after all.

Wasn't it?

Those with DSL cable got to see it all in real  
time. Those without used a buffered connection or  
downloaded the file and played it over and over  
again. Somehow the camera accidentally caught the  
exact spot, the exact angle needed to capture the  
faces of the two agents who had started all of  
this when the end came. Thousands saw the flashes  
of the HRT paint pistols, the bodies falling in  
simulated death that felt all too real in  
imagination and thousands saw the realization of  
failure pass over green tinted faces stark with  
shadows and hiding nothing. Eyes captured eyes  
and, unaware of the camera's cruel honesty,  
Mulder grinned at his partner and Scully saluted  
ruefully. Three thousand miles away, a woman who  
had never seen her husband cry stared in horror  
as he wept for the partner he had lost in the  
line of duty twenty years before.

Then darkness swept over Mulder's eyes and  
Scully's smile faded as she searched her  
partner's face. He hesitated, then in a hoarse  
voice he uttered words that echoed through one  
hundred thousand living rooms across the US and  
would re-echo in a million more before the week  
was out.

"There's a way."

One hundred thousand people held their breath as  
faith and trust and something no one was willing  
to limit to the word love crossed his partner's  
face. Her voice echoed his in simple commitment.

"If we quit now, they win."

Then the camera lost them, and they were gone.  
Despairing cries reached out as hands grabbed for  
keyboards and tumbled through camera windows,  
desperately trying to find one which would answer  
what came next, where the pair had gone. IS  
fingers danced through circuits seeking the right  
codes, the right frequencies. HRT and ATF visuals  
were dumped into secondary windows as everyone  
tried to locate the fleeing figures who had  
become the tragic heroes of the Maze Revolution.  
Watching sixteen monitors at the same time, the  
FBI tech support crew edited the video feeds on  
the fly and dumped it straight onto the web  
server. The result was a remarkably complete  
record of the agents' flight intercut with  
supporting visuals of the HRT pursuit closing in  
on their heels.

The transition from dimly lit hallway to complete  
darkness was shockingly abrupt. Camera feeds  
shifted to green tinted night vision and infra-  
red, and viewers saw both agents come to a halt  
twenty feet into a cavernous room. Shoulders  
tensed and teeth clenched as they watched the  
agents fumble blindly in the darkness for a  
ladder that could be seen clearly in green tinged  
light. Explosive sighs of relief as Mulder found  
it and both agents launched themselves upward  
into the dark. One of the IS techs isolated and  
boosted the audio feed and living rooms echoed  
with the haunting sounds of labored breathing.  
Then the agents were on the catwalks fifty feet  
above the ground.

A mid-air run of unconnected staggered metal  
catwalks, watchers heard Mulder pulling the  
length and position of each catwalk from memory,  
saw Scully pace forward with crime scene  
precision then stop and feel around cautiously  
for the next section. The agents held their  
balance carefully as the walkways trembled and  
swayed with their passage. And then the HRT  
arrived.

Cutting to a second camera, viewers watched as  
the team froze, adjusted night vision goggles and  
tilted their gazes upward. The whispered curse  
captured and edited into the footage by a  
creative IS tech was the only warning to the  
watching public.

"Holy Mary Mother of God. They're doing the  
Catwalk in the dark."

Startled eyes widened in horror as the IS techs  
cut back to the final stage of the journey. The  
final catwalk was much more than two or three  
feet higher or lower. This one...was impossible.  
The sound tech switched back to the audio feed  
capturing the low-voiced conversation between the  
agents.

"How high up is this one Mulder?"

Silence.

"Mulder?"

"Eleven feet. And there's two feet of horizontal  
air between us and it."

Mulder's voice was quiet. For a long moment  
neither agent moved. Then Scully's voice came  
back quietly.

"I'll need your fatigues for a rope."

Viewers watched in horrified fascination as the  
male agent immediately slipped out of his one-  
piece coveralls. Scully wordlessly removed boots  
and socks and stuffed everything into her pack.  
The watchers joined the HRT team in a round of  
quiet cursing as Mulder boosted his partner to  
his shoulders and she used his upheld hand to  
balance as she carefully straightened. In that  
moment, one hundred thousand people ceased to  
breathe.

She tightened the strap on her protective  
goggles.

There was a safety net but no one really noticed.  
All they could see was an agent balanced  
trustingly on her partner's shoulders as she  
stared blindly into the darkness at a catwalk she  
couldn't see. At a landing point she had only her  
partner's word existed.

"Now, Mulder."

One hundred thousand people cried out as Mulder  
placed his hands beneath his partner's feet and  
threw her upwards and out. One hundred thousand  
people cursed as her outstretched arms slammed  
into the top of the catwalk and she started to  
fall. One hundred thousand hands clenched as  
fingers grabbed, caught, then held.

As she hauled herself to safety, one person  
allowed himself to breathe.

Scully rapidly pulled on socks and combat boots  
while stunned HRT agents gaped upward. Suddenly  
eyes failed to meet eyes as HRT remembered the  
awkward bitter truth that there was to be no  
heroic escape. Even as they acknowledged that  
between the two sets of fatigues the agents might  
have enough rope to haul Mulder past the last  
obstacle, the two renegades didn't have enough  
time. Both agents turned their heads as they  
identified the sounds of HRT agents swarming up  
the ladder. Having reconsidered the use of night  
vision goggles and unhampered by blindness, the  
HRT raced toward them. Unbelievably the watchers  
heard good humor in Mulder's voice as he bantered  
with his partner.

"Fuck Scully, this is going to be undignified.  
You want to throw back the coveralls?"

"Shut up and climb Mulder."

The watchers held a collective breath as Scully  
seemed to fall backwards over the end of the  
catwalk, her knees hooked around the metal rung  
at the end of the structure like a six year old  
on the monkey bars. The tied legs of Mulder's  
coveralls were wrapped around her wrists and the  
arms hit him in the face. His face registered  
astonishment, then the clang of boots on the far  
catwalk propelled him upward.

Scully hissed as his weight hit the makeshift  
rope and her voice was strained .

"I've decided that you owe me for this, Mulder."

He laughed almost soundlessly, "Would that be  
female logic or Scully logic? Who's idea was  
this?"

Even strained she managed to inject a note of  
prim certitude, "The leap in the dark? Yours."

"I stand corrected. What do you want? Assuming we  
survive, of course."

Mulder had reached her hands and after a brief  
hesitation decided on the fabric at her shoulder  
as the most structurally sound place to grab  
hold.

"I want a sea monster." Her voice was  
contemplative, but determined.

Mulder almost lost his grip at her waist and both  
agents swayed back and forth as his legs kicked  
in reflex.

"Jesus Scully. A little advanced warning before  
you do that."

"I mean it Mulder. I want something we can  
photograph. And ocean Mulder. No wimpy-assed  
ponds, lakes or rivers. Honest to god ocean.  
Blood and tissue samples. Something we can by god  
shoot if tries to eat us. Got it?"

Mulder's delighted grin was so unexpectedly  
brilliant and his answering laugh so joyous that  
cops across the country found themselves smiling  
in response.

His left hand grabbed the fabric at her thigh and  
then his right was hitting catwalk and Scully  
wrapped her fingers around his boot and pushed  
upward. He crawled over her body, then reached  
back an arm and helped haul his partner back to  
safety. She unhooked her knees from the metal  
rungs, unknotted the legs of his fatigues and  
handed them over . Both agents flattened  
themselves on the catwalk as the HRT took aim  
despite the distance. Then, laying down defensive  
fire by sound alone, both agents ran for the end  
of the Catwalk and left the HRT cursing behind  
them.

******************************

By unspoken agreement, both agents were ready to  
finish the game. It was unlikely that any of the  
other teams had survived the last attack and it  
was only a matter of time before they ran out of  
places to run to.

"Hey Mulder, do you think that last exercise  
qualified as our problem solving exercise?"

Her partner grunted and compared the symbols on  
the wall to the map in his head and took an  
abrupt right turn. " It's got my vote,  
unfortunately it was an HRT game zone. I think  
we've pissed off enough people that they'll be  
picky about it."

"That's what I thought you'd..." her voice cut  
off abruptly as they suddenly found themselves in  
a brightly lit, white painted room. The door they  
had entered was the only entrance or exit.

"Uh, Mulder?"

"Shit, this wasn't on the map Scully. This should  
be a hallway."

As one the agents whirled as the door behind  
them clanged shut with a bang. Instantly the two  
agents separated, running fingers lightly over  
the walls and meeting on the far side of the  
room. No doors, no seams, no exit. Eyes searched  
for ductwork, movable ceiling tiles, grillwork -  
again, nothing. Both agents froze when a barely  
felt tremor vibrated through the soles of their  
boots.

"Scully?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell me that was just too many burritos for  
breakfast."

"Look on the bright side Mulder. We must have  
really pissed them off."

Her partner threw her a wry look. "Go team."

A clicking sound near their feet had both agents  
leaping backwards just as a six by six piece of  
the floor dropped out from under them. Scully  
peered over the edge carefully. She looked up  
briefly as her partner grabbed the back of her  
coveralls, then turned back to her investigation  
when he smiled deprecatingly, but didn't let go.

"It looks like a slide of some kind, Mulder."

"Wherever it goes, Scully, it's not on the map.  
There's not supposed to be anything under this  
part of the building. I think we should take  
another look for another exit before we try this  
one."

Scully frowned consideringly, then nodded. "Maybe  
we tripped something accidentally. Did the map  
show anything under construction?"

Mulder shook his head "But they may only mark it  
if it's completed."

"Or maybe this is something for one of the  
military teams. SWAT maybe."

"Maybe."

They backed away from the opening cautiously.  
Before they could start searching however,  
another rumbling vibration, this one much more  
pronounced, shuddered through the floor. Mulder  
and Scully exchanged glances, then stared in  
open-mouthed disbelief as the walls started  
closing in.

Mulder swiveled his head in wide-eyed alarm, "I  
think we can absolutely positively say that we've  
pissed them off, Scully."

"I don't friggin' believe this."

The agents backed toward each other as they moved  
away from the steadily advancing walls.

"I'm willing to pretend this is a drug induced  
hallucination if you are."

"Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"Jump!"

With a yell, both agents abandoned caution as the  
walls lurched forward with increasing speed and  
hurled themselves into the yawning cavern at  
their feet. The slick sides of the slide provided  
almost no resistance and Mulder and Scully shot  
down the incline totally out of control. The  
slide made a sudden turn upwards and, yelling,  
the two agents found themselves briefly airborne  
before slamming back to earth in a great splash  
of water. Instinctively recognizing that none of  
the howls each was hearing was induced by pain,  
they indulged themselves with a few seconds of  
virulent cursing and sputtering as they hauled  
themselves upright in the knee deep water.

Finally, limbs straightened, faces wiped and  
teeth chattering they eyed each other,  
automatically taking inventory and checking for  
signs of superficial injury. Scully scowled as  
she saw Mulder's swiftly hidden grin as he took  
in the sopping locks plastered to her head and  
dripping in her eyes.

"Not a word, Mulder."

"Did I say anything?"

He grinned, she snarled, then they both shivered.

"I don't think this water is a good sign,  
Scully."

"It's warm enough that we should be okay if we  
keep moving. It's not the water that's cooling us  
off, it's the air temperature."

Both agents peered around the tiny room. Dim  
lighting from recessed underwater lamps bounced  
off stone walls and generally gave the agents the  
impression that they had fallen into some  
medieval crypt located deep beneath the streets  
of some Middle-Eastern city.

"I give it an 'A' for atmosphere, Scully."

"You think maybe this is part of the training  
grounds for some of the HRT doing work overseas?  
Anti-terrorism?"

"I hope so. Otherwise we're going to be very  
hungry before they find us."

"I've found a hole in the wall, Mulder. Over  
here, just above the waterline."

"Can you see anything at the end?"

"Yeah. Light. What do you think?"

"Okay. But this definitely counts as our problem  
solving exercise."

Chuckling softly in response, Scully squirmed  
into the tunnel. After a moment, her partner  
followed.

****************************************** 

"You lost them. What do you mean you lost them?"

I pulled my attention away from the monitor I was  
studying and tried to locate the source of that  
baritone rumble. Agent Siles was on the phone  
trying to explain to a harried IS support crew  
that it wasn't the Command Center's fault. IS, in  
turn, was trying to explain that they really  
didn't care whose fault it was, but the email  
traffic wanting to know what happened was  
threatening to overload the servers, so could  
they please just fix the cameras. Please.

AD Skinner was glaring at a hapless CIA analyst -  
Detweiller again - who cringed even as his eyes  
darted towards Chalmers in desperation.  
Unfortunately for him, the spook appeared equally  
as agitated as Walter Skinner.

"They removed their tracking devices and audio  
transmitters several hours ago. I was tracking  
them using cameras when we had a power surge. The  
cameras were only out for a few seconds, but when  
they came back online the agents were gone."

Skinner opened his mouth, definitely geared up to  
verbally splatter the analyst across half the  
Command Center when Chalmers reached out and  
touched him lightly on the shoulder. The AD  
growled and glared at the spook, but held his  
fire. Chalmers pinned the analyst with a  
penetrating stare.

"Was there any place they could go that you might  
have missed?"

Detweiller swallowed, then offered tentatively,  
"They might have gone back in the air ducts."

Chalmers looked back at the AD. "Could your  
agents have caused the power surge?"

The AD started to shake his head, then paused. A  
thoughtful look appeared on his face. " I don't  
know" He finally admitted. "I've learned not to  
underestimate anything those two might be capable  
of doing. But you'll have to ask the techs if  
it's physically possible from where they were  
when it happened."

I studied the trio for another long moment before  
deciding that everything was under control. My  
fingers danced over the keyboard as I called up  
another time stamped computer record. There was  
something about the action taking place on the  
screen, but I could not place what was bothering  
me about it. The last of my three pairs of agents  
were enjoying a large supper and would expect to  
meet with me in another ten hours regarding a  
performance debriefing. I was actually looking  
forward to the debrief. Not only had the agents  
survived almost to the very end, it was the team  
I would have sworn would have died in the first  
few hours of play.

I hid a quick grin. It turned out that the lack  
of synchronicity I had seen was a very practiced,  
very well established role the agents played to  
hide the fact that they had been lovers for  
almost four years.

I was looking forward to talking with them.

For now however...my fingers slide across the  
rollerball and advanced the picture another few  
frames. For now I had a mystery to solve.

**************************************

They had emerged into a dimly lit tunnel built of  
more stone walls. The far end of the tunnel was  
hidden in shadows and the ceiling curved low  
enough that Mulder had to bend his head awkwardly  
to avoid scraping his scalp.

Scully turned to ask Mulder a question only to  
flounder as a sudden groan and explosion of water  
knocked her off her feet. A heavy weight fell on  
her, pinning her briefly under water as Mulder  
tripped when his feet tangled with hers. Both  
agents came gasping to the surface, yelling over  
the torrents of water spewing from the walls.

Within minutes, the water was swirling around  
Scully's knees and almost as one the agents  
started racing as fast as possible through the  
water jets, heading for the far end of the  
tunnel. Knocked back and forth through by the  
force of the water, Mulder almost missed it when  
his hand, dragging across the ceiling for  
support, disappeared into thin air. He lurched,  
grabbed onto Scully to keep her from disappearing  
into the deluge and felt around cautiously.

It was another tunnel, this one drilled straight  
up into the ceiling. He was about to thrust his  
arm all the way into the hole when Scully grabbed  
with both hands, restraining him. A moment  
later, she thrust her pack into his grip. He  
paused and then thought about the fact that this  
might be an air vent of some kind. His fingers  
twitched spasmodically as he considered the sick  
image of his hand thrusting up into the blades of  
a spinning fan and he swallowed back a sudden  
urge to vomit. Smiling weakly at his partner, he  
pushed the pack up into the hole. Nothing. No  
sudden drag indicating that the pack had caught  
on anything, no sudden upward yank as blades  
grabbed hold. Nothing.

As he yanked the pack out of the hole, Scully  
placed both his hands around her waist and  
indicated that she wanted a boost. They both  
already knew she wouldn't fit, but he guessed she  
had to try. Her head fit easily enough, but there  
was no way she was getting her shoulders into  
that narrow space. Not unless she had taken  
lessons from Tooms when he wasn't looking. He  
felt her chest vibrate and could only assume she  
was calling for help. The sound of the water  
seemed to get louder as the tunnel filled and his  
eardrums were starting to complain.

Scully indicated that she wanted down and he  
didn't even bother trying to yell a question at  
her. The look in her eyes and the negative shake  
of her head said it all. He looked down the  
tunnel and turned to ask if she wanted to see if  
they could find an exit, but she had already  
followed his gaze and had started moving in that  
direction.

They found the end of the tunnel within five  
minutes.

Both agents stared in disbelief at a solid stone  
wall set with several six inch pipes across the  
top. Mulder considered them briefly and concluded  
they were probably part of some form of overflow  
system. There was a steel hatch set into the wall  
at the left. Unfortunately, even if the handle  
had been unlocked, it was obvious that the hatch  
was meant to open inward. They would never be  
able to open it against all this water pressure.  
Ergo, it wasn't meant to be opened during the  
exercise.

If this was an exercise.

The terrifying thought that they had stumbled  
over some automated environmental system or  
unfinished game zone was reflected in Scully's  
horrified eyes. Then she turned abruptly and  
surged back the way they had come.

"We have to get back in the other room, Mulder."

He could barely hear her shouting over the water,  
and the level was high enough that she was  
swimming more than walking. He wasn't doing much  
better. He considered her plan. Obviously they  
would have to swim through the entrance tunnel.  
He grimaced at the thought of doing it underwater  
and in the dark, but it was doable. Hell, they  
had both done worse. At least this water was  
clean.

The walls of the slide would be slick, but he  
assumed that at worst they could wait until the  
tunnel filled up with water and use it to float  
up. If the water didn't go high enough...well,  
hopefully by that time someone would take pity on  
them and come drop them a rope.

Assuming anyone even knew where they were.

Mulder told himself he was just being paranoid.  
That the games were set up the way they were to  
trigger just this sort of fear response.

They were doing a good job.

Mulder was just passing the hole in the ceiling  
when the world seemed to explode. He had a brief  
vision of Scully turning a startled face toward  
him when it felt like the ceiling caved in.  
Weight slammed into his shoulders and he barely  
had enough time to draw a deep breath before the  
water closed over his head and the weight carried  
him to the floor.

At first he was too stunned to panic, and then he  
was too busy trying not to panic to move. By the  
time his body was pinned flat against the floor,  
the option to move was taken from him.  
Desperately he shook his head, trying to get his  
face clear, and he was losing the battle with  
panic when a familiar and welcome set of hands  
wrapped themselves around his face.

Scully.

The sudden burn in his chest told him that he was  
running out of oxygen. He tried again to claw at  
the stuff holding him down only to feel her hands  
tightened. He froze. She wanted him to hold  
still. Scully needed him to hold still. Fighting  
every instinct he had, Mulder clenched his teeth  
and froze.

Instantly her hands brushed across his face,  
carefully clearing away something that felt like  
mud. He wanted to scream at her to hurry and do  
whatever it was that she was going to do or he  
was going to be out of air and out of time.

Unexpectedly she pinched his nose and he waited  
in terror and confusion for her next move. She  
tapped the side of his jaw. When she tapped it  
again he knew she was trying to tell him  
something, but he didn't know what. Then she was  
gone.

He almost cried out after her. It was only by  
telling himself that this was Scully, that he  
managed to hold himself still. This was his  
partner. She wasn't going to leave him. Not  
unless she had no choice. He forced himself to  
think it through. Obviously he was trapped under  
something she didn't want him trying to move. The  
stuff on his face had felt like mud. Had part of  
the wall caved in?

As he latched onto this puzzle, his panic receded  
just enough that he became aware of signals his  
body had been trying to deliver. Pain radiated  
down his right leg and the pressure across his  
chest would have made it hard to breath if he had  
had any way of breathing. It was the slight  
tremors he was feeling through the floor at his  
back that told him why Scully had wanted him to  
stay still.

Something in the pile of stuff holding him down  
was still shifting.

He was out of oxygen, his lungs almost beyond the  
point of excruciating pain when he felt her hands  
slide over his face again. He had one almost  
incoherent thought that at least she would be  
there when he died when she pinched his nose  
roughly, jammed two fingers between his teeth and  
yanked. The unexpected betrayal didn't even have  
time to register as the useless air in his lungs  
exploded outward. Before he could inhale however,  
lips were fastening over his and air, blessed air  
was being forced into his mouth. He inhaled  
greedily.

Reflexively he held his breath as she disappeared  
again.

Three more times she came back, three more times  
she breathed air into his lungs before his mind  
cleared enough to begin calculating what had  
happened. What was still happening. They slipped  
into an unthinking rhythm, broken only once when  
she took longer to return and he nearly panicked  
thinking that she had drowned. The trips took  
longer after that and the likely reason for it  
slowly filtered through his sluggish brain.

The tunnel had obviously filled with water and  
Scully was forced to go further for air. The  
image of the narrow hole in the ceiling popped  
into his brain and he could only hope that  
whatever water was coming into the tunnel was  
matched by the water flowing out the overflow  
pipes. Otherwise they were both about to die  
hideously lonely deaths.

Or no, not so lonely.

Somehow he knew if Scully found the hole filled  
with water one of the times she returned, that  
she would come back to him. They would die, but  
they would die together. Oddly enough, the  
thought was reassuring in a strange way.

But the actual thought of dying still sucked.

Mulder fastened his hopes on the people upstairs  
noticing that something was wrong and coming to  
get them. Because that was the only way either of  
them were getting out of this alive. Even if he  
had a way of telling Scully to make a run for the  
slide, there was no way she would leave him. Not  
as long as he was alive.

He examined that thought carefully.

He wasn't suicidal. He would hang on as long as  
possible. But...it was an option. If it took too  
long, if it got to the point where Scully got too  
exhausted to continue, but where she was too damn  
stubborn to give up until she died with him.  
Well...it was still an option.

He smiled as he felt her hand slide gently across  
his face.

*********************************************

"What the hell are you looking for? You've been  
staring at that scene for almost two hours."

I glanced up to find AD Skinner studying the  
screen over my shoulder. Then I rolled my  
shoulders painfully and stretched to get the  
kinks out. "I'm not sure exactly. Something  
set your agent off and it's been bugging me.  
I can see WHERE it happens. I just can't figure  
out WHY."

Skinner dragged a chair close, sat down and  
leaned closer to the screen. "This is where  
Scully flipped out?"

I nodded and forwarded the tape to the relevant  
portion. On the screen a green tinted Scully was  
frozen in the arms of a large Marine, her boot in  
the process of connecting with the arms of the  
burly Sergeant in front of her. Both men wore  
night goggles and the agent looked excruciatingly  
tiny next to the two men.

" Everything up until this point was more or less  
normal. They were intense and serious about the  
game play but that's about it. But here. Here  
something happened and from her body language  
your agent started taking this deadly seriously.  
She was shooting with paint pellets, but I'm not  
sure her conscious mind was aware of anything  
other than pulling the trigger. I'm damn glad she  
didn't have a knife...because I think she would  
have used it."

The rustling of fabric behind me had me turning  
my head to see Chalmers moving up behind me. The  
CIA operative just stood quietly, eyes intent on  
the screen, obviously interested in my  
explanation. He started to say something, then  
stopped. Skinner fixed him with a steady gaze  
obviously waiting for whatever it was the CIA  
agent was so reluctant to say. Finally the spook  
exhaled slowly.

"We've been assuming that she just...overreacted  
to the game. That we inadvertently triggered a  
hot button response. But..Walt. What if her  
instincts were right?"

I frowned, confused. Surely Chalmers wasn't  
suggesting what I thought he was suggesting. I  
glanced over at the AD expecting to see a  
reflection of my own disbelief and was shocked to  
see serious contemplation. His eyes were fixed on  
the CIA agent's face as the man continued to sort  
through his thoughts.

"Both of these agents are field operatives,  
Walter. You and I both know the kind of shit they  
get caught up in. Maybe she sensed something,  
something that set off the alarms. Maybe she  
didn't even know why she was reacting. Her mind  
would have been telling her it was all a game.  
But what if..." his voice trailed off as the AD's  
expression hardened.

I found my breath getting shallow as I stared  
between two men who shouldn't be...couldn't be  
saying the words I was hearing...and were. I had  
to make two attempts at swallowing past the lump  
in my throat when Chalmers pinned me with an  
intent gaze."Play that back in real time."

I immediately tapped in the request and watched  
as the screen obediently replayed the scene. As  
it came to a halt, Skinner sighed then looked at  
Chalmers, who shrugged.

"You didn't see anything? You don't know why she  
got so angry?" Despite everything else, I  
couldn't keep the disappointment out of my voice.  
I had been hoping that someone who knew the  
agents might have seen something I had missed.

"Oh I know why she was angry...your Judas there  
pretended to be her partner and almost led her to  
abandon him. Believe me, that would have been  
enough. These two are...extremely protective of  
each other."

I was studying the screen as I defended the game  
strategy."The whole point was to make partners  
more aware of their partner's identifying  
characteristics so that something like this  
wouldn't happen in real life. The whole point was  
for her to recognize that it wasn't her partner."

Chalmers' voice came back laden with  
disgust,"Seems like you stacked the deck a bit  
much didn't you? That little trick with the hand  
on her back. What the hell was she supposed to  
recognize- his breath?"

The unexpected attack threw me enough that I  
glanced toward the AD hoping for some support,  
or at least an explanation- and found a mirror  
image of Chalmers' disgust.

Glancing back toward the screen I rolled the tape  
back until it showed the part where the staff  
member playing her partner reached out and pushed  
her toward the waiting Marines. My eyes narrowed  
as he studied the image. I hadn't realized how  
deliberate that action had actually been.

"Is this the trick you mean?"

Chalmers snorted, "Bastard even got the exact  
place on her back. " He darted a guilty look in  
Skinner's direction and mumbled, "Surveillance  
tapes." as a hasty explanation.

Ignoring the implications of a why exactly an FBI  
agent would be under (illegal) surveillance by  
the CIA, I tapped the relevant frame. "Are you  
two telling me that you recognize this gesture.  
That it's enough of a trademark for you to  
recognize it as Mulder's?"

Chalmers' snorted," Recognize it? Hell, it's one  
of the reasons the water cooler crowd thinks  
they're sleeping together. Agent Scully isn't  
touchy feely at the best of times, but she  
hasn't taken his hand off yet. Figuratively or  
literally."

For the first time, I thought I understood what  
it meant for blood to freeze in one's veins. I  
should have noticed. Why hadn't I noticed?  
Because obviously this gesture was reserved for  
circumstances other than combat. Either that or  
it had been overshadowed by the high amount of  
physical contact required by the game. I recalled  
again that Mulder and Scully had spent much of  
their time in ductwork and darkness. Not the sort  
of situation where a gesture like that was  
needed.

"Assistant Director Skinner, Agent Chalmers. I  
didn't ask that man to do that. I certainly  
would never have done something like that  
under these circumstances. It would be ...  
extremely counterproductive."

And not just because it pissed the agents off.  
This sort of thing could actually damage the  
sort of recognition we were trying to develop.  
The fact that these two agents had enemies who  
knew them well enough to use their instincts  
against them was...disturbing.

Those were not the sorts of enemies that FBI  
agents were supposed to have.

Two heads came up like bloodhounds and I  
swallowed tightly at the look that passed between  
the two men.

"Agents Scully and Mulder are still missing."

I wasn't sure why I felt I had to emphasize that  
fact. The words were out of my mouth before I  
realized that I was going to say them. But  
instead of laughing at me or giving me odd looks,  
both men were suddenly on their feet and grabbing  
for cell phones.

Within minutes, every able bodied staff member  
and agent pair were combing the Maze. Every light  
was turned on, every camera cycled through. They  
had been searching fruitlessly for over an hour  
when I suddenly heard a horrified voice from  
three consoles away.

"Oh my God, there's water in the tunnel  
overflow."

I stared at the white-faced VCU agent monitoring  
the cameras from the lower levels and wracked my  
brain for a matching reference. Then my eyes  
widened. Oh shit. Snatching at my keyboard I  
punched in the relevant codes even as I heard my  
own voice shouting for the HRT Commander.

Please. Please. Please.

I found myself praying for unnamed things.

Finally the camera brought up the section of the  
Maze I was looking for. Groans and gasps behind  
me only confirmed what my own brain was telling  
me. Water was pouring from the overflow vents and  
despite the fact that there was no reason to  
believe that this was where the missing agents  
were located, somehow I knew...

It was the same feeling I had gotten every time I  
had gone rushing into a suspect's hideout, hoping  
against hope that this time we would not be too  
late.

The days I got that feeling...we always were.

Through my earpiece I could hear the sound of  
combat boots echoing on cement and then the sound  
of cursing and something about a door welded  
shut. I was too busy calling up the cameras. Then  
the HRT commander was yelling something in my ear  
about explosives and sending divers down the  
slide.

The cameras in the first chamber were  
unresponsive and it was with no real surprise  
that I heard another set of voices cursing and  
yelling that the entrance to the tunnel had caved  
in.

The feeling ...that feeling...started to get  
worse.

Finally the underwater cameras came on-line and  
the first thing I did was bring up the ones by  
the Blowhole. Assuming they weren't trapped under  
whatever mess had closed the tunnel, this was  
their only hope. A sudden ragged cheer behind me  
greeted the sight of Agent Scully rising into the  
tube for a lungful of air. But the euphoria was  
short-lived. Before we could do more than note  
that she was still alive, she had dropped back  
below the surface of the water and headed for the  
bottom of the tunnel with determined strokes of  
her legs.

The cheers trailed off into fear and uncertainty.

No long-limbed body took her place, sharing the  
single source of air available in the Tunnel.  
Just the green-tinged sight of Agent Scully  
disappearing below the range of vision on this  
camera lens. Hastily I typed in directions and  
the camera was tilting down and down even as the  
body of Agent Scully flashed by on her way back  
to the Blowhole. No one suggested changing the  
camera angle. We knew where she was going. We  
wanted to see where she had been.

Dread jackhammered in my chest, and even with the  
night vision it was hard to make out the scene at  
the bottom. The water was murky, the result of a  
partial wall collapse. The obvious conclusion was  
that Agent Mulder was trapped somewhere under all  
of that mud and stone, but no one shouted out in  
recognition. Was he buried? Was Agent Scully just  
too grief-stricken or too stubborn to leave her  
partner's body to be recovered by the rescue  
teams?

A sudden yell and I was staring as Scully's  
compact little body arrowed into the camera's  
field of vision. Aiming straight for the base of  
the collapse, she checked her pace, cautiously  
inching closer as the gentle disturbance of her  
passage brought more mud drifting down from  
above. And then her hands were moving in the  
water and a sudden rush of bubbles from the end  
of the pile marked the missing agent's location.

"Oh my god."

The curse was soft and I could not have turned my  
head to see who said it if the fate of the free  
world rested on knowing the man's identity. Not  
if it meant turning away from the drama unfolding  
across my console screen. Not a person in the  
room drew a breath as Agent Scully dipped her  
head forward, the purpose of her action implicit  
in the situation.

And then she was gone. Back to the surface. And  
Agent Mulder remained motionless, a light coating  
of mud and silt drifting down to cover his face  
once more.

"How the hell can he just stay there, without  
struggling?"

The horror in the young CIA agent's voice ignored  
the possibility that the agent was not moving  
because he could not. Somehow, everyone knew that  
he was staying still because he had too. Because  
too much pressure one way or another would bring  
the rest of the tunnel down on top of him. So it  
was a question without an answer.

Surprising me though, AD Skinner found one.

"Because she needs him to."

The next ten minutes passed in a haze of frenzied  
concern and speculation. It was obvious that we  
couldn't blow the door-not without risking a  
secondary cave-in. But we could at least get air  
to the agents. Up in the Command Center, three  
dozen people watched as scuba tanks were lowered  
into the Blowhole. We winced in sympathy as,  
exhaustion in every limb, Scully slammed headlong  
into the metal tanks before her brain could  
process what she was seeing. Then we saw her peer  
through the murky water and saw her hands reach  
out with sudden desperate energy. Without even  
pausing to take time to refill her lungs at the  
Blowhole, she wrenched the tank from its rope,  
and headed back to her partner.

There were two mouthpieces connected to the first  
stage octopus, and Scully made good use of one as  
she got her partner connected to the other and  
found a safe place where the tank wouldn't be  
ripped away by an unexpected shifting of the  
debris. Then she was back to the surface to see  
what other goodies the HRT had left her.

There wasn't much they could get to them. Masks  
to let the agents see, a tank for Scully and a  
spare for Mulder. Flashlights were out of the  
question as the engineers needed to see what was  
going on, and the additional light would have  
interfered with the night vision cameras. Two-  
piece wetsuits to help conserve body heat. No one  
actually thought that Mulder would have any use  
for his, but no one wanted Scully to have any  
reason to suspect that they might harbor doubts  
of digging him out from under the mud.

Hope was the only real gift we had to give.

One of the HRT donated an underwater watch with  
luminous oversized numbers and after agreeing to  
check in every 30 minutes, Scully returned to her  
partner. Using the new freedom supplied by the  
scuba tank, she carefully explored the debris  
field. Even through the murky water and less than  
optimal camera angles, the watchers could already  
see that it was a futile effort. Any attempt to  
uncover or shift the pile, brought more sliding  
down from the wall. From the cautious looks  
Scully kept giving the roof above her, there was  
also some doubts as to its stability.

By the time her first check in rolled around she  
had exhausted thoughts of digging Mulder out. She  
suggested checking out the tunnel back to the  
slide, but the HRT Commander wanted to wait until  
they could get air-lines connected to above  
ground compressors down to her partner. He was  
worried that if the tunnel was unstable and  
Scully herself became trapped, that they would  
then only have the air left in their Scuba tanks.  
Independent lines connected to an air source  
above would at least ensure a constant supply of  
oxygen as long as they didn't get the lines  
twisted.

So we waited. Except for periodic trips to the  
surface to check for updates, Scully spent the  
next two hours sitting quietly by her partner,  
hand touching his shoulder, letting him know that  
she was still there. For his part, if it wasn't  
for the fact that bubbles streamed away from his  
face in steady exhalation, no one would have  
known he was still alive. He was conscious. That  
much we knew. But the agent did not turn so much  
as his head as his partner moved in and out of  
his field of vision.

Only AD Skinner had any concept of the cost of  
that seemingly unremarkable feat to his normally  
hyperactive and twitchy agent. And he was at a  
loss how to explain it. He later described  
looking around at the room full of CIA analysts  
and VCU shrinks and wanting to yell at them to  
open their eyes. To see that the ultimate goal of  
all our partnership games and exercises was right  
there on our camera screens.

How do you tell a room full of active agents and  
physically courageous people, that the purest  
form of love and trust and bravery it had ever  
been my privilege to witness was in the action of  
an active man actively doing nothing.

Finally the word from the engineers came back.  
Whatever had caused the collapse had ruptured one  
of the main water lines. The overflow was  
handling it, but there were problems. First, the  
dirt behind the wall was saturating with water,  
becoming heavier and more unstable. This was bad  
enough, but the extra weight was putting pressure  
on the already compromised wall and the entire  
tunnel was one big cave-in waiting to happen.  
Worse, they weren't sure what would happen when  
they shut off the water. There was a considerable  
amount of water pressure behind the break, and  
the resulting shift in counter-pressure could  
cause the very collapse they were hoping to  
avoid.

The entrance chamber was totally blocked and it  
looked like deliberate sabotage. In fact, they  
suspected that the collapse which had trapped  
Mulder was actually an unexpected ripple effect  
from the original explosion. They would have to  
check the debris field later, but tentatively  
they didn't think collapsing the tunnel had been  
the bomber's original purpose. He had just wanted  
to block access to the slide. The collapse had  
been an unfortunate accident resulting from an  
unknown structural weakness in the tunnel wall.

Mulder just happened to be standing next to it  
when it fell.

The engineers had looked shocked when AD Skinner  
unexpectedly dropped his head into his hands and  
started laughing.

Finally they just decided to cut through the  
steel door. The door itself led into an airlock  
that could be flooded with water to equalize the  
pressure on both sides, allowing the door to be  
pushed gently inward. Rescue divers would then  
rush in with all the protective equipment needed  
to extract the trapped agent - hopefully before  
the rest of the wall came down on him or the roof  
caved in. The engineers however, were adamant  
that the ruptured water main had to be shut off  
immediately. By the time they got underwater arc  
welding equipment out to the site and cut through  
the steel plate hatch, it would be too late.

If they shut off the water now, they might only  
trigger a mudslide in the already compromised  
wall. If they waited, the whole damn tunnel would  
probably go within the hour. Agent Mulder was  
already trapped, Agent Scully was not. And the  
minute that door was open, there would be more  
people going into that tunnel. Did anyone really  
want to compromise the integrity of the structure  
any further?

The answer, of course, was no.

At her next check-in, Scully was told the news.  
There was no real way to get across details and  
no time, but they managed to make one thing  
perfectly clear. Agent Scully had five minutes to  
get her ass away from the wall. They might have  
told her that they wanted her away from the wall  
so that she could dig him out after the slide.  
The fact that it would have been only half a lie  
should have given it credibility. Would have, if  
she had stopped to listen to them. But Scully had  
had two hours to consider the likely  
ramifications of a mudslide or cave-in and she  
had made plans of her own.

Her earlier attempts to dig around Mulder had  
resulted in the partial clearing of his head and  
shoulders. She had taken the wetsuit top the HRT  
had sent down for him and worked it carefully  
under his head and about six inches under his  
upper back. It had had the result of insulating  
him somewhat from the cold floor he was resting  
on, but that wasn't the reason she had done it.  
She had threaded the above ground air lines  
through the right arm of the jacket, and now,  
picking up a six foot length of four inch pipe  
she had dug out of the debris, she threaded that  
through the left arm.

The spare Scuba tank was already buried securely  
in the mud, both mouthpieces tucked between  
Mulder's neck and shoulders. It was a back-up  
system in case the slide damaged the air-line  
connected to the compressor above. Scully had  
zipped the right side of her own wetsuit jacket  
to the left side of Mulder's. Now, we watched  
open mouthed as she slipped her arms out of her  
fatigues and then kneeling beside Mulder's  
shoulder, brought her wetsuit jacket over her own  
back and with some difficulty, zipped the left  
zipper to right. 

Both of the agents heads and upper shoulders were  
now enclosed in a rough tube of neoprene and one  
of the HRT divers sucked in a quick breath as he  
figured out what she was doing. The tight squeeze  
made it difficult for her to move, but from the  
cameras it looked like she was stuffing the gaps  
between their sides and the neoprene with the  
arms of her fatigues. Then her fingers grasped the  
necks of the suits, and arching her upper body  
protectively over Mulder's head, she rested her  
forehead on braced forearms and pulled the suit  
in tight.

"Off. Tell them to turn the water off."

The diver's voice was hoarse, but there was no  
doubt in his face. One of the engineers cursed as  
someone grabbed him, showed him the screen and  
then he was grabbing his cell-phone and ordering  
someone else to shut down the main valve.

For a long moment, no one moved. No one even  
wanted to breath least the shallow movement here  
set off disastrous motion there. And then it  
happened. Someone moaned aloud and several others  
cursed as the mud shifted above the two  
agents...and slid. The camera went momentarily  
black as mud and dirt engulfed the agents. Tense  
minutes passed as they waited for the silt to  
clear.

Meanwhile, the rescue team wasn't waiting for  
anything. The arc welding equipment had arrived a  
full ten minutes earlier than expected and they  
were making good use of the time. Fifteen minutes  
later the door fell. The silty haze had cleared  
enough that the rescue divers were visible as  
they dug through the mud and dirt covering the  
agents. The mudslide and resultant release in  
pressure had moved enough earth that another  
collapse was not an immediate threat. The ceiling  
was still an issue and the mudslide,  
surprisingly, had had an unforeseen benefit.

I stared at several jagged edged pieces of cement  
that had fallen from the ceiling and landed on  
the mud covering the trapped pair. Any one of  
those pieces, connecting with unprotected flesh  
would have been enough to crush bone. I swallowed  
back nausea at the thought of what one of those  
lumps of rock could have done to an unprotected  
skull. Now if only the sheer weight of the mud  
hadn't killed them both already.

"Can you tell if they are still getting air?"

The diver kept his eyes glued to the screen and  
AD Skinner realized that he hadn't even heard the  
question. He touched the man's shoulder gently.  
The diver nearly leaped out of his chair in  
shock.

"Can you tell if they are getting oxygen? Are  
they breathing?"

The diver glanced at the screen helplessly,  
"There's air going down, but there's no way to  
tell if it's getting to them or if the line is  
ruptured and is bleeding off somewhere."

"But they still have the spare tank right?"

"Yeah, but even assuming they can physically  
breath under all that weight, the air itself  
isn't the problem. They can inhale all they want.  
Isn't going to do them a damn bit of good if they  
can't exhale. That's the problem with mud. No air  
pockets. It doesn't leave anywhere for the air to  
go."

"So that's why..."

Skinner gestured at the screen.

"Yeah. She was trying to create an air pocket.  
Unfortunately, even if she did that, the air they  
are exhaling is trapped down there with them  
Eventually the pressure will build and..."

"Squash their skulls?"

"Something like that. She was probably hoping to  
bleed off some of the pressure with that length  
of pipe, but I don't see any air bubbles so it  
may be covered in mud or..."

His voice trailed off, but it was easy enough to  
guess what he was about to say next. Either the  
end of the pipe was covered, or the agents  
weren't generating any air to create bubbles.

As if in answer to that very thought, a sudden  
explosion of bubbles from where he had been  
digging knocked one of the rescue divers flat on  
his ass. In a flurry of motion, experienced hands  
cleared away rock and silt until a ragged cheer  
echoed across the Command Center. The  
unmistakable shape of two bodies appeared, air  
bubbles bleeding from the edges of the neoprene  
now that the sealing weight of the mud was gone.

Both agents were barely conscious and there was  
still a need to go slowly. Aside from the still  
present danger of cave-in, it was more than  
possible that Mulder had injuries that had been  
obscured by the mud. Their care was rewarded when  
it was discovered that somehow in the fall, his  
leg had broken. The heavy weight of the mud had  
acted as an impromptu splint, keeping him from  
damaging the leg further. It was only after the  
doctors got a good look at the x-rays that they  
realized how closely the broken edge of bone had  
come to severing the artery. One of the interns  
commented that it was a good thing that lack of  
oxygen had probably made him too weak to  
struggle. It had probably saved his life.

The attending physician, six interns, a resident,  
three nurses and several curious onlookers simply  
stared in confusion as the caustic voice of the  
AD bit out that the only weakness involved was  
the weakness of the brain that had a wet-behind-  
the-ears child making comments about something he  
knew nothing about. Then he told them that if  
they were planning on making idiotic and ignorant  
statements of that sort anywhere in the vicinity  
of the red-headed nuisance they kept trying to  
evict from Mulder's room, well then...

"You might want to make sure that your death and  
disability policies are up-to-date."

**********************************  
Epilogue

Several weeks later...

Scully took a deep breath and pushed her hair  
slowly back from her face as she stared at the  
woman in the mirror. The eyes. Had she ever  
belonged to those eyes? Before Mulder?  
Before...everything?

The glass was cool and slick under her  
fingertips, reminding her almost of marble and  
that famous line about the sculptor not creating  
the vision in marble, but simply let it out.

Who was the woman she was about to set free?

She found herself slipping into her skin so  
easily, this stranger who had lurked beneath  
proper suits and federal regulations. Had she  
always been there or had she found her genesis  
in the molten kiln called Truth? Justice.

Sacrifice.

There was no gentleness in this woman. Not in  
this aspect. This woman was distilled anger,  
purified vengeance and unyielding in her  
judgment of the sins committed against her.

Her eyes studied her body dispassionately, then  
discarded the severely cut suit and equally  
proper shoes. Mulder would be there today,  
watching. He had always known this woman waited  
behind Dana Scully's daylight persona. With his  
profiler's soul and watchful eyes, her suits had  
never disguised those rare flashes of personality  
which betrayed her.

But he was not the one she was dressing for...

Her hands reached for the clothes she had laid on  
the counter in earlier preparation. Why was she  
doing this now? This was more than a warning. It  
was a clarion call to battle to those who had the  
eyes to see. Assuming she was simply not sinking  
into an odd form of madness, envisioning a role  
for herself that was as pitiful as it was  
melodramatic.

No.

No doubts.

The woman she needed to be would have none. Not  
about this.

The black long-sleeved knit turtleneck was a gift  
from Mulder. Had they broken into an Air Force  
base or an Army base that night? She frowned as  
she realized that she couldn't remember. It did  
not matter. The thin knit material hugged her  
body closely. Comfortably smooth beneath the  
shoulder holster it left nothing that would  
accidentally snag on loose objects that could go  
crashing to the ground at inopportune moments.  
The shoulder rig had started life brown in color,  
but had been carefully dyed two days ago until  
it matched the rest of her outfit. Black guns,  
black belt with a blacked out buckle and a  
leather case for her handcuffs - also dyed to  
match.

She had almost worn combat boots. Had tried them  
on and stared at them for a long moment in the  
mirror in her bedroom. They had been comfortable,  
but they were not quite what she needed. She was  
a stiletto today, not a machine gun. She needed  
something a bit more...feline. Combat boots were  
exchanged for a pair of black-soled leather ankle  
boots with sturdy toes and heels. In her mind's  
eye she had almost seen the soles gripping the  
edge of a balcony as she slipped over the side.  
Could feel the impact those toes would make when  
driven against the inside of a knee-cap or up  
into a groin.

She had handed the saleswoman her credit card  
without a moment's hesitation.

And finally the guns. The Beretta was holstered  
on her left shoulder, angled for a fast downward  
draw that would not pinch and would not slow her  
down by dragging across her breast. Her Sig was  
at her back and Mulder's back-up gun was snuggled  
up tightly against her right ankle. Two spare  
clips rested in each of the military style  
pockets that ran along the outer thighs of her  
black cargo pants. A deadly looking pocket knife  
shared space with a black knit watch cap and  
mini-maglight in the pocket on her left calf.

Staring at herself in the mirror she waited for  
the first feelings of sheepish regret. She was  
wearing more hardware than the average SWAT  
officer and carrying enough bullets to take out a  
platoon. She waited for the image in the mirror  
to start looking ridiculous. She waited for some  
sign that she was having second thoughts.

She wondered if she had time to buy an ankle  
holster for her other ankle.

She reached for the last of her accessories.  
Ostensibly, the wide band of black neoprene and  
velcro wrapped tightly around the wrist of her  
right hand was a slightly trendy watchband. In  
reality, she marveled at the feeling the  
additional support gave her as she pulled her Sig  
and sighted experimentally down the barrel. Maybe  
it was time to reconsider parts of her wardrobe.

The woman in the mirror smiled a slow dangerous  
smile as she tugged her sleeve down over the  
band. It didn't matter if it was visible or not.  
It was how it made her feel that was important  
here.

State of mind was everything.

She started to turn away, and then hesitated.  
Something...something was still missing. Some  
inner edge that she could not quite put her  
finger on. The gel in her short hair had given  
the swept back locks a wild and tangled look that  
was as efficient as it was feral.

Her eyes went to her ears. Reconsidered earrings  
of some kind, then shook her head. The woman in  
the mirror didn't need them. They were a hazard.  
Something that could get snagged. Not to mention  
the possibility of an unexpected glint of silver  
or gold giving her location away.

No, the woman in the mirror had no need or desire  
for ornamentation.

Except.

Her hand reached and hovered briefly. This felt  
right. Prompted by some inner instinct, she  
fastened the tiny cross back around her neck. The  
gold showed clearly against the black of her  
turtle-neck and it should have looked out of  
place. Something hovered, some understanding of  
herself was waiting just outside her reach. She  
fingered the necklace and wondered what her  
subconscious was trying to tell her. Was this  
just part of the image or something deeper?

The lady in the mirror had no answers.

Would they see what she meant them to see?

No more practice. If they wanted to play, they  
better be prepared for her to play for keeps. She  
had given them fair warning.. Right there in the  
darkness she had told them what she would do.

It was their own fault if they did not believe  
her.

The woman in the mirror smiled a cold, merciless  
smile.

Because if those bastards thought they were  
taking her partner from her, they were in for a  
surprise.

****************************************

She let Mulder's black leather jacket slip from  
her shoulders as she stepped from the driver's  
seat of the bronco and uncoiled from the vehicle.  
The jacket landed in the passenger seat and the  
FBI credentials she had just shown the CIA  
parking attendant slid into the right thigh  
pocket with the clips. She had wondered about the  
bronco. Considered whether or not the woman in  
the mirror would drive a sports car. Then she  
contemplated the places you could go, the things  
you could carry...the bodies you could hide. Her  
smile was cold and held feline anticipation.

She scanned the damp gray concrete pillars and  
parked cars openly, making no secret of her  
suspicion, her intent to react with deadly force  
to any threat. She imagined the sudden  
consternation of the security guards as they  
viewed her attire in black and white camera  
screens. She paced toward the building entrance,  
letting the feelings that came from the smell of  
the guns, the weight of the spare clips wash  
through her blood.

Intent.

That was the key

The best salesman in the world is the one who  
believes in his product, because it shows. In his  
voice, in his eyes, in every line of his body.

Live the role.

Believe the lie.

Believe.

A half step left of the Abyss was a world where  
shadows waited. A world where men like Alex  
Krycek, Luis Cardinal and CGB Spender lived.  
Where death was the price of admission and you  
learned the rules by surviving the first round of  
play. A world of innuendo and make-believe. Power  
built on fear and belief. Intangible control  
easily broken, easily lost. The game had only one  
purpose. To maintain control without losing too  
many of the players.

You are only as powerful as the strength and  
numbers of your pawns.

Death then, was not the ultimate objective. Just  
a possible tool. One of many.

Threat was the knife edge of control.

Push too softly and your pawns refuse to react.  
Push too hard ...and they'll turn on you like  
cornered rats in a desperate bid for life or  
salvation. And you never knew who you might  
need in the future.

Image.

Belief.

The foundations of illusionary power.

But death laughs in the face of illusion. Death  
has no respect for threat.

Death is threat.

Look at me and see what I have become. What you  
have made of me.

*I am become Death, destroyer of worlds*.

I am the Assassin. I am Death. I am Threat.

Use me well...

Lest the knife in your hand become the knife at  
your throat.

For the Assassin is the minion of Death.

And I fear no illusions.

Startled eyes, puzzled eyes, these she ignored.  
They were not the ones with eyes to see the world  
she was walking within.

There.

Those eyes there, and that pair over there. The  
man she had come to see had barely joined the  
game. Yet he would know those eyes, if only by  
reputation. Now he would watch their eyes,  
watching her.

Would he see what they saw?

Or would he see what he wanted to believe?

The clips, the guns, the clothes, the walk.

All props.

But the woman. At this moment, the woman was  
real.

And she was extremely pissed off.

********************************************* 

"What the fuck does she think she is doing?"

The minute he said it, he regretted the loss of  
control. But Christ! His agent looked like an  
escaped extra from a Tom Clancy novel. Or a b-  
grade movie set. How many bloody guns was she  
wearing? He watched in disbelief as cold  
blue eyes went first to her partner, openly  
assessing his condition, publicly establishing  
her priorities. Icy suspicion studied the men at  
his back, clearly evaluated the potential hazards  
surrounding him and sent shivers down the ex-  
Marine's spine.

Echoes of gunfire and distant jungle swirled in  
memory, and as she met his eyes, for the first  
time since he had known her, Walter Skinner felt  
a flash of fear of her rather than for her. This  
was not the naive young woman affronted and  
confused by the betrayal of her government. Nor  
was she the haunted victim of a shadowy  
conspiracy whose personal losses evoked equal  
measures of respect for her determination, guilt  
at his own inability to prevent the loss and  
anger at the foolish blindness that sent both  
these agents bumbling and stumbling headlong into  
one avoidable disaster after another. They played  
larger games in ignorance, and seemed so offended  
when it came back to bite them on the ass.

Who was this?

He ran his eyes slowly over her body,  
reevaluating her attire. Not FBI, no. But who  
would he have assumed that she was if he did not  
know her? Old memories flickered and he looked  
again at shoulder rigs with no reflecting metal  
pieces, clothing chosen for functionality and  
weapons rigged for speed...and far too many  
clips. Her outfit said assassin. Those clips said  
something else.

Extreme lethal force.

Looking at Mulder, he expected to see horror or  
embarrassment at his partner's bizarre attire.  
Instead, the agent was watching with a hard light  
in his eyes that Skinner did not recognize. Was  
that fascination? Approval?

Anticipation?

It was a rather sudden shock to realize that  
for the first time since he had known him, the  
agent's face accurately reflected the darkness  
that sometimes moved in his eyes. Unease shivered  
its way across his spine as he looked, really  
looked, at his agent for the first time in years.  
He knew better than most that looks could be  
deceiving. He had known that the man was a  
profiler. Had even seen the effects second hand.

But Mulder had always seemed so damn young. His  
passion seemed to manifest itself as exuberance,  
his features...delicate, unfinished somehow.  
Mulder was a problem because of his enthusiastic  
and unending ability to hurl himself into the  
hunt. But if he had been asked, Skinner would  
always have said hound dog, not wolf.

When you looked at Mulder, dangerous was not the  
first word that came to mind.

He lacked that hard edge, that ruthless quality  
that Hollywood was so fond of stereotyping. But  
there was nothing boyish about his features now.  
All that passion, all the energy that normally  
seethed and rolled off the agent in a hundred  
chaotic directions was suddenly leashed and  
bound. The body that twitched and bounced and  
shifted in a constant state of motion was held  
motionless with a hungry anticipation that was  
excruciating in its predatory patience.

Hard coiled explosive potential.

Watching.

Waiting.

And most terrifying of all, under absolute  
control.

More eyes than his were watching her. More  
precisely, Agent Cory Detweiller - CIA, wannabe  
player and recent terrorist - watched the men  
who he aspired to become watch her. His initial  
look of disdain changed slowly to caution and  
then surprised apprehension as he realized that  
men who he had assumed feared nothing watched  
a tiny woman in black with their eyes blank and  
their empty hands held casually near weapons.

"I think Agent Scully would like to speak with  
the prisoner, Sir."

Mulder's low-voiced comment caught Skinner off-  
guard, and for a moment he just looked at the  
man with emerging anger. What the hell were his  
agents up to? This wasn't their case - not  
considering that they were involved. But it was  
Scully who had left her partner in the hospital  
and spent the next two weeks of her "vacation"  
tracking the man down. She had been smart about  
it too. There was nothing connecting her to the  
anonymous tips which had led to his arrest.  
Nothing that could lead to a charge of  
interference with an official investigation.  
Nothing provable, that was. No one, however, had  
any doubts who was responsible for connecting the  
dots.

And she had been standing there watching when the  
CIA and FBI had made the arrest. Not  
surprisingly, no one had seen where she came  
from, no one remembered calling her, and no one  
saw her leave.

Now, as Detweiller was led into the interrogation  
room, Skinner saw several agents remember the  
rumors. That this was the woman who was REALLY  
responsible for Detweiller's capture. That he had  
been the one responsible for setting off the  
explosion which almost killed her partner. That  
the CIA had been unable to get him to drop the  
attitude long enough to get him to finger the men  
who had paid him.

Or even to give a reason why.

Skinner shifted uneasily as he realized that  
Scully was following the prisoner into the  
interrogation room fully armed. Amazingly, no one  
had the guts to protest. Not even him, it would  
seem. Chalmers motioned both Skinner and Mulder  
into the room next door. A wall to wall one way  
mirror made up the connecting wall and Skinner  
eyed the other occupants uneasily.

He recognized them. Not who they were, but what  
they were. Eyes too shadowed, stances off by just  
a hair, a few too many weapons. He'd go long odds  
that half of them weren't even CIA.

And they were all watching Scully.

Skinner felt the frown gathering slowly and for  
the first time in too many years, felt lost  
regarding his agents' political agenda. It was  
his job to save their asses, damn it. He was the  
one who negotiated the political minefields and  
kept them from getting their legs blown off.  
Their positions were shakier than ever. The old  
guard was dead. The men who had protected them as  
often as they had threatened them were gone. A  
dozen dozen people in shattered projects with  
incomplete information fought among themselves  
for new positions of power. Some knew part of  
what was actually happening, some clung to what  
was supposed to have happened, but none, he  
realized, were Mulder and Scully.

He turned that thought over once or twice,  
carefully.

The Consortium, which had held equal parts hope  
and equal parts damnation for mankind, was dead.  
The easy power which they had wielded, the  
rewards for the inner circle which they had been  
able to offer, all gone. Even assuming that their  
successors knew what the hell the larger picture  
was supposed to look like, no one had the time or  
the connections to put it all back together  
again. These were new agendas, with new players  
and new loyalties. New alien factions.

How many of them even knew about the aliens?

They could deal themselves right out of the war.  
Right here, right now. Walk away and never look  
back. Did either of them realize that? Mulder had  
never had a choice before, regardless of what he  
might have thought in the early years. His  
father's legacy had seen to that. And Scully?  
Scully could no more walk away from what had been  
done to her, her family and her partner than she  
could sprout wings and fly. So they were both  
flies in amber, trapped by their pasts and their  
natures.

Until now.

No one was left to punish. No one was pulling the  
strings, dangling hints and oddly shaped pieces  
of an unknown puzzle in order to tempt them into  
the game. No one particularly wanted them alive,  
but no one truly wanted them dead. If they kept  
their noses out of it, they were just another  
couple of civilians...unless...

Unless.

What do the crusaders do when the quest is over  
but still unfinished?

What do you do when you suddenly realize that  
there are no people standing at the top. Nobody  
holding the reins. Nobody to follow or to blame.  
Just bits and pieces and foot soldiers who may or  
may not even know what war they are fighting.  
Soldiers who needed generals. Who needed a rally  
point. Something they could recognize.

Someone who could give them answers.

Maybe that bomb had done exactly what it was  
supposed to do after all.

He had thought that they could walk away.

He had never really thought about the roles they  
would need to take on if they did not.

It wasn't just a power vacuum, Skinner realized  
suddenly, but an absence of direction. All those  
foot soldiers and no senior officers. All those  
newly promoted officers...and no map to the war.  
But if Mulder was the natural heir-apparent to a  
cause that spanned decades and claimed countless  
lives, then Scully was Jeanne d'Arc. Not the  
woman burned at the stake for her beliefs, but  
the soldier who raised an army for the King of  
France. He had forgotten.

Wars need leaders, but leaders need generals.

And generals needed soldiers like those gathering  
in this room.

Skinner had always known it was a war. In his  
head, he had known it. But his emotions had  
never made the connections between the battle  
to come and the agents he had always seen  
somewhat as its victims.

But who else was there?

Their honor, their motives were unassailable.  
Their names were known. They knew the larger  
picture of what the Consortium planned...and what  
it had hidden. Their bodies harbored the chance  
for immunity, the possibility of a vaccine the  
Consortium would have used only after the aliens  
had decimated the old world order and left the  
empty seats at the top free for the taking.

Who, after all, would resist the only men with the  
cure?

But Mulder and Scully could become what the foot  
soldiers wanted. Figureheads cast in the image  
their followers needed. Created whole cloth from  
belief, need and mutable reality. Symbols.  
Rallying points. And they would allow it. Duty  
would let them do nothing less.

Mulder was the natural heir to the projects his  
father worked on and the natural ally of his  
father's enemies. And Scully? The men who would  
follow her would lay their lives at the feet of  
Mulder's cause for one reason and one reason  
only. Because she believed. Because the strength  
of her convictions and the passion of her support  
would lend credibility to the cause and because  
of the wistful hope that by following, the  
followers might somehow touch just a bit of  
reflected light from the fire that burned between  
them.

Mulder and Scully.

The Martyr and the Soldier.

Justice.

He had been wrong. They could never walk away.  
Not now. Perhaps not ever.

And neither could he.

In the interrogation room, Detweiller had been  
handcuffed to the table and the two CIA guards  
had left Scully alone with him at a nod from her.  
Detweiller had a frozen half-sneer on his face  
that had been his stock response to any and all  
questioning. He never gave an inch, not even to  
confirm information they already knew.

Scully just looked at him with the same detached  
curiosity with which she might have watched a  
routine autopsy. Significant in a professional  
sense, but not something from which she expected  
to learn anything.

"There is no honor in their war."

There was no heat in her voice. No burning hate.  
Simply judgment. Moral values weighed and found  
wanting in the eyes of one who had shed blood to  
draw the line he had crossed. A mortal archangel  
fallen to earth to render her verdict with a cold  
fury born of offense and anointed in sacrifice.

Implacable.

Immovable.

Retribution reborn.

Wingless but not crippled. Carrying a gun instead  
of a sword...

Detweiller fastened his eyes on a ring of scars  
visible on Scully's exposed right forearm. As he  
studied those marks, badges of a battle he could  
only guess at, Skinner frowned. He didn't  
remember those scars as being so prominent. So  
visible. As she casually rested her hand against  
the table, naturally drawing Detweiller's eyes to  
the ripple of muscle beneath damaged flesh,  
Skinner realized that this too was part of the  
play.

With one simple action she established beyond a  
doubt that Detweiller was a mere puppy in a dark  
war she had survived for seven years. She did not  
brag. She did not threaten. She simply was what  
Detweiller longed to be. A warrior fighting for  
something worth saving. Worth dying for.

Someone who knew the potential cost of losing the  
coming battle...and who rejected Detweiller's  
actions as unworthy.

Men like Alex Krycek were lost when they sold  
their souls too cheaply. Foot soldiers who  
trusted their lives and honor into the hands of  
men who did not value what they held. Whose  
flaws could have become strengths in another's  
grasp.

Who would Alex have been if he had met Mulder  
first?

Dark twins. One lost, one found.

Who would Mulder have been without Scully?

One had only to watch the desperate way Krycek  
circled them to see every soldier's nightmare.  
Back and away, then back again. Coming as close  
as his sins would allow. Trapped like a moth to  
the flame that burned between the two agents he  
might have given his life to had the butterfly  
beat its wings just a little bit differently.  
The cost of betrayal. Trust given too lightly or  
too soon. Gazing ever in at something he had  
forever barred himself from touching before he  
knew enough about the game he was playing to  
judge the price of his actions.

That was the true tragedy of a shadow war.

Men who learned to trust no one still trusted  
their orders. And took the blame. Because once  
they lost their names, their orders were all  
they had.

Flies in amber.

Trapped forever unless someone set them free.

And the men in the observation room were looking  
at a hammer.

Detweiller was staring deeply into ice blue eyes,  
searching for answers to a question he did not  
know how to ask. He saw choices. He saw lines  
drawn. An unflinching loyalty that paled to  
insignificance anything he had ever felt in his  
life. Even as he shrank from the heat of the  
blaze, he yearned for the power of its touch.  
Just once. That was the longing Skinner saw  
reflected in the window of his soul. To feel  
that certainty, that searing commitment. To  
know he was capable of even a fraction of that  
incandescent passion.

Just once.

"Why Mulder?"

His shattered whisper held a million questions.  
She answered only one.

"Because he is the last gift left in Pandora's  
box."

A prize worthy of her soul.

The last hope of the world. Or no. Mulder had  
hope. Enough hope to fling himself into the fire  
that would blaze across the sky and take the race  
of mankind with it. He generated it within him.  
Hope for himself. Hope for the world.

Enough hope to fight a war.

Detweiller's breath came in shallow pants as he  
tried to find meaning in the answer she had given  
him. Then he asked the words that gave his life  
into her keeping.

"Then who are you?"

Lady Justice.

Hope's Guardian.

The other half of their combined soul.

Her smile held a million answers, but her voice  
betrayed none.

Detweiller jerked his head up as two CIA guards  
opened the door. Confusion crossed his face as  
they came to his side of the room.

"Wait."

He searched her eyes, looking for the questions,  
the demands. The lies.

"Wait."

Scully merely watched silently and he began to  
resist as the guards hauled him to his feet.  
Detweiller's eyes were frantic, his voice  
desperate.

"Don't you want to know why?"

She did not answer. Detweiller's struggles  
grew to a fever pitch as he fought to stay.

"What do you want from me?!"

The cry was ripped directly from his soldier's  
heart. And with that, he was hers forever.  
Every man watching saw it happen. Saw the sorrow  
in her eyes and the loss and despair crashing  
into Detweiller's soul.

The sentence came gently.

"Nothing at all."

****************************************

The silence in the interrogation room was  
absolute. Blank eyes in blank faces.

And then they left.

Slowly.

Giving long thoughtful looks to the man meeting  
his partner's eyes through a one-way window.  
Nothing was ventured. Nothing was said.

And the silence spoke louder than words.

Neither Mulder nor his partner moved. Skinner  
was held trapped by the spell woven between his  
two agents. Had he really seen what he thought  
he had seen?

And where would this day's work take them?

A tiny ripple of motion, a shivery breath as  
Mulder suddenly seemed to stir to life and the  
agent turned his head , eyes still burning with  
something Skinner wasn't sure he wanted to  
understand. Then he smiled.

A curiously edged twist of the lips that echoed  
the darkness swirling in his eyes.

"I said I couldn't mind-fuck the CIA."

He glanced once more through the glass and the  
edges grew pointed fangs.

"I never said that she couldn't"

**************************

Skinner and Chalmers both lingered, perhaps out  
of morbid fascination. They watched Scully lift  
her head guardedly as the door opened and Mulder  
limped through. He paused just inside the door.  
Fleeting expressions came and went, too rapid to  
truly be analyzed...at least by outsiders. And  
perhaps, too quickly even for those caught in  
the middle.

Suddenly, Mulder flashed his partner a blinding  
grin and brought his hand to his chest and swept  
her a graceful, old fashioned bow. He tilted his  
head to look up at her and hazel eyes gleamed  
slyly through roguish, half-lowered lashes.

"My Lady Retribution."

Beneath the black sweater, shoulders relaxed and  
Dana Scully shot him a half exasperated, half  
amused look even as she playfully nodded her head  
in regal acknowledgment.

Mulder straightened, his smile widening, "Shall  
we go save the world?"

Skinner found himself holding his breath as he  
thought about a game turned reality and reality  
played like a game. He thought about the fact  
that he did not know these people at all. Had  
only scratched the surface of what they were  
becoming.

For all the humor in his voice, Mulder was dead  
serious.

Scully paused, then smiled a slow secret smile  
as she pulled the Beretta, checked the clip  
and shoved it back in the holster with a snap.  
Her words were a truth that Skinner knew to his  
bones.

"I got your back."

~The End 


End file.
